Bass Architects, Chartered – residential and commercial architectural firm in McLean, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.

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Watergate Office Building
Washington, D.C.

Bass Architects were brought in for extensive renovation of all the public spaces in this famous building, including all new finishes in the main lobby, secondary lobbies and corridors on all tenant floors. The office building and the hotel use each other’s lobby for common access, so the spaces needed a degree of transparency.

The design team, which included Nora Fischer Designs, Inc., wanted to create visual focus for what had previously been an unadorned wall. The solution was to add texture with patterned, laminated glass, which takes on a wonderful aura of gauzy transparency.

The elevators, public restrooms and other functional spaces were part of the redesign. Colors, materials, textures and other elements from the more public spaces were repeated in the elevator cabs, making them feel more like rooms.

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Photos by Roger Bass & Alan Karchmer