by Zach Mortice
Associate Editor

How do you . . . design residential condominiums in a young, gentrifying neighborhood that respects the scale of current development patterns and draws its form from the neighborhood?

Summary: Sorg and Associates’ Visio and Murano projects in a gentrified neighborhood are contemporary Modernist condos that draw their forms from neighborhood mainstays (row houses and a neighborhood church) and also knit these structures together with a transitional and proportional decrease in scale. These condos and several others are creating a pocket of contemporary residential architecture in and around an area that has become a mecca for young professionals seeking out its cultural and nightlife attractions.

Washington, D.C., traditionally has been a tough town for contemporary architecture, and Suman Sorg, FAIA, is one architect championing its cause. Sorg’s latest project is the Visio and Murano, moderately priced condos with a contemporary design located in the progressively gentrifying neighborhood of Shaw. The Visio is fully occupied, and the Murano will open shortly. Formerly a center of African-American culture that predated Harlem, Shaw has become a destination neighborhood for young professionals, filled with diverse restaurants, art galleries, and nightlife.

Despite their Modern, flat-roofed design, both the Visio and the Murano buildings (they are attached to each other) take their cues from traditional neighborhood forms—in this case, the typical Washington row house, and a red brick historic church on the south side of the development. Sorg says they paid “a great deal of attention” to the now-derelict church, which has recently been granted historic preservation status. The front façades of both buildings are balanced with two opposing elements: sculptural, protruding brick blocks, which Sorg says reference rowhouse bay windows, and recessed window spans that wrap around the buildings corners.

The form of this cutaway void and sculptural block emerged, Sorg says, from looking for a way to emulate the church tower next door without directly competing with it. The church tower is atop a slender volume on the left side of the church, and the top of the Visio echoes this weight distribution. The protruding, asymmetrical barbell brick façade covers the left side of the Visio, and lighter wrap-around windows cover the right side. One building stands to the left, open space takes the places of the right-side windows, while the church tower takes the place of the brick protrusion. As you move from the taller and thinner five-story Visio to the shorter and wider four-story Murano, the vertical barbell becomes a symmetrical motif, as it is mirrored from the center of the Murano. Continuing this gradual reduction in scale, the next building to the left is a two-story brick rowhouse. From the church, to the taller Visio, to the shorter Murano, to a typical rowhouse, the project moves gracefully and proportionally beween its two primary reference texts.

The Visio and Murano offer an example of Sorg’s established warm and humanistic approach to Modernism, which also is likely a savvy business decision in the Washington architectural market, where most of her business is. For contemporary architecture neophytes, pure Miesian glass box architecture would likely be a stretch too far. “There has to be more than one experience in a space,” Sorg says, evidenced by her balance of glass and brick, as well as the well-proportioned interior views of the Visio and Murano.

The program shift
Within view of the Visio and Murano is another Sorg and Associates project—the Beauregard Condominiums, a multilayered brick and glass building of vertical masses. Blocks away will be Sorg’s T Street Flats, currently under construction, where a glowing glass façade will hover over a brick one. A block away from the Visio and Murano, an exuberant condo development of colored glass and stainless steel screams its cultural credibility out loud. On a poster that looks like an ad for an FM rock radio station, it boasts: “Views that Rock,” “Two-inch Concrete Counters,” and a “Hip Scene.” In fact, the developer claims it’s the “Coolest Building.”

Like nearly everywhere else, purely private investment is using architecture as a branding mechanism to sell a lifestyle—and is also making some of the boldest architectural statements in the city. Aided in part by Washington’s rise as a destination city for young professionals, Shaw and its adjacent neighborhoods are changing rapidly, and its property values have been spiking. They jumped 33 percent from 2004 to 2006 alone, according to the Washington Post. This change has helped create a tentative incubator for contemporary Modern architecture. As young (and often white) professionals move into formerly African-American neighborhoods, Sorg says that the new demographics require a very different living program that is better served by sparsely programmed, high-concept condominiums. The average 20- or 30-something freelance graphic designer-type that these buildings are marketed to have much less need for the traditional living space that typically come with a Mid-Atlantic row house.

So far, this design incubator hasn’t extended much beyond residential condominiums, which is a fair indication that the design pendulum still has a ways to swing. When it arrives, Sorg will be in the fortunate position of having already developed a foothold in a place like Shaw, where contemporary architecture and historic preservation are working together to create a new and contextual level of urban vitality.