Letter
Dear Mr. Hunter:
In its public meeting of 16 July, the Commission of Fine Arts reviewed a final design submission for renovations and additions to Shirley Chisholm Elementary School, located at 1001 G Street, SE. The Commission approved the submission with the following comments, conditional upon the resolution of its guidance on the massing of the school’s eastern addition.
Reiterating their strong overall support for the design, the Commission members expressed appreciation for the project team’s responsiveness to their previous advice, including the extension of the classroom volume’s facade treatment to the south by one bay along 11th Street. However, they observed that a two-story extension of this facade treatment, as presented, would appear to add a third building volume to the 11th Street facade but would still not enclose the rooftop mechanical equipment within the building envelope. Instead, they found that a stronger design solution would be to repeat the classroom bay treatment at the same three-story height, with the same number of window openings as the three bays to the north, louvered as necessary; they made these revisions a condition of their approval of the final design.
The Commission looks forward to reviewing this project’s associated public artwork, which should be submitted as a separate project when ready. Please coordinate the completion of the final review in response to the Commission’s comments with the staff which, as always, is available to assist you.
Sincerely,
/s/Thomas E. Luebke, FAIA
Secretary
Delano Hunter, Director
D.C. Department of General Services
3924 Minnesota Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20019
cc: Hiroshi Jacobs, Studios Architecture
Dani Alexander, Studio AKA
Renee Pean, DC Public Schools