DYNERMAN ARCHITECTS PCHOUSE IN LITTLE WASHINGTON
LITTLE WASHINGTON, VIRGINIA
This project was designed as a new farmhouse for a couple and their three daughters in the town of Little Washington, Virginia. The site looks out over the rolling hills east of the Blue Ridge, and is in the midst of an overlook of an old apple orchard. The design consisted of a new barn and horse paddocks.
LOBBY OF 927 15TH ST
WASHINGTON, DC
This project is a renovation and redesign of an existing office-building lobby. The building was built in 1917
The size of the space —under 300sq. ft.— and the simplicity of the program, allowed us to understand the design in an equally simple way. And to render our solution by focusing on essential architectural ideas—material, form, assembly. We saw the lobby as a porch connecting inside and out. The canopy, which is both roof and ceiling, establishes the spatial connection between the street and the lobby. The ground plane is a cleft stone indicating its origin in the earth but ordered and therefore emblematic of the processes of construction. Finally, the blue of the sky gives way to the blue ceiling that floats above and encloses the assembly.
Awards & Publications
1997 Washington Chapter AIA; Award for Excellence in Interior Architecture
ST IGNATIUS CHAPEL
CALCAGNINI CONTEMPLATIVE CENTER, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
CLARKE COUNTY, VA
This Chapel is a component of the Calcagnini Contemplative Center.
Small and intimate, the chapel is intended for groups up to 24. Developing an architecture that imparts a strong and clear spirituality without specific reference to any one religion was at the heart of the design intentions. While Georgetown is a Jesuit university, the make-up of its students and faculty is varied. The chapel needed to serve all religious communities at the school – Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. The design succeeds, avoiding both domesticity and overt religious allusion through its austere palette and simplicity of design.
Conceived as an elemental pavilion, the Chapel’s palette is spare yet rich. The stuccoed masonry walls are perforated with 8” x 8” x 1½” slabs of glass; the floor is poured-in-place stained concrete. Exposed fir framing and cedar boards complete the interior. The roof is galvanized aluminum, typical for the sheds and barns of the region.
Awards & Publications
2014 Faith & Form/IFRAA International Awards Program for Religious Art & Architecture: Honor Award in Religious Architecture
2014 Virginia Society AIA: Honor Award
2014 Interior Design Magazine; Best of Year Awards Honoree
2014 NAIOP Honor Award
2009 Washington Chapter AIA;
Honor Award for Unbuilt Projects
A+A Magazine: Architectural Society of China, April 2015
Southeast Asia Building, 2015
Featured in Architizer, 2014
World Architects, 2014, “Building of the Week.” Featured in “50×50 – 50 States in 50 Weeks.”
Specifier Magazine, 2014, “Peace on Earth” by Sara Smylie
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
CALCAGNINI CONTEMPLATIVE CENTER
CLARKE COUNTY, VA
“Contemplatives in Action.” This phrase captures the essence of Jesuit intent perhaps more than any other. At the heart of Ignatian teachings is the Jesuit tradition of spiritual retreats. The Calcagnini Contemplative Center serves the 20 retreat programs at Georgetown University, the premier Jesuit school in the United States.
Georgetown’s program of retreats is varied; some are religious – covering all faiths represented at the university; many retreats are secular. Historically, the University had rented multiple venues to serve this broad agenda. In 2004, Georgetown purchased land in rural Clarke County, Virginia to build a center to house all its retreats.
Organized about two quads, the Center comprises multiple buildings. The Entry Court, Chapel, Dining Hall, Community Building and an existing, circa 1885, farmhouse, define a public courtyard with westerly views to the mountains and Shenandoah Valley. The cabin ranges center on a smaller and more private court.
This Center serves the core mission of Georgetown University unlike any other facility in the school’s 225-year history.
Awards & Publications
2015 Virginia Society of Architects AIA Merit Award in Architecture
2015 WoodWorks Regional Excellence Award
2014 NAIOP Honor Award
Wood Design & Building, 2015, “Celebrating Excellence in Wood Structures”
AED CONFERENCE CENTER
WASHINGTON, DC
Our client, a large Not For Profit organization, leased the top five floors of an existing office building. Beyond the space required for their corporate offices they wanted a conference center that could accommodate 400 people. The central core of the original building was an parking garage which rose from the basement to the roof. Our office was challenged to remove the top six levels of the garage, reconstruct the space and insert the conference center. The specifics of the program included a single space that could accommodate 400 seats, break-out rooms, a catering kitchen, full state-of-the-art audio visual capabilities including translation booths.
Awards & Publications
2000 Virginia Society of Architects
Inform Magazine
1999 Washington Chapter AIA;
Merit Award in Interior Architecture
Inform Architecture+Design in the
Mid -Atlantic, 2000 number 2
HODSON HOUSE
ANNAPOLIS, MD
Small – just under 500 students on a historic 31-acre campus in Annapolis, MD. – St. John’s College holds a significant place in American higher education. Dedicated to a Liberal Arts education with a curriculum built upon The Great Books Program, this school, the 3rd oldest college in the country, offers a rare, possibly unique course of study.
In 2009 our firm, in a joint venture combining Architecture and Landscape Architecture, developed a Comprehensive Master Plan for St. John’s. That study outlined the qualities of the campus, its limitations, and its importance and contributions to the city. It identified and prioritized immediate and future needs and developed a framework for sustainable campus management and growth for the next 25 years. Hodson House is the first building to emerge from that report.
Our design intentions addressed 4 objectives: develop a site plan that affords a gracious campus entry from King William St., design a structure that maintains and works in concert with the small scale/multi-purpose buildings that make up much of the campus, develop a design that is clearly modern but works with and adds to historic Annapolis, and provide needed space for the administrative and academic missions of the school. The program includes offices for Development, Alumni Relations, faculty offices and a seminar /conference room.
Awards & Publications
2015 Maryland AIA Chapter Honor Award
KALORAMA TOWNHOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
The renovation of this 1904 townhouse focused primarily on the main floor – living, dining, & kitchen – and was based on 3 simple ideas: Remove the partitions that divide the rooms, establish a dialog between the new and existing and develop a formal language that emerges from the original.
The stair/entry hall, the original main public space, became, over time, more ritual than real program. The original kitchen, a small dark room at the rear at the of the house, was oriented more to the back alley than the living and dining areas. We removed walls, opening up the plan from the stair hall to the back of the house. Then, by moving the kitchen to the party-wall side of the house, we were able to free up the exterior walls and allowing for the introduction of large expanses of glass and the resulting abundant natural light. The stair-hall became the dining room, transforming this space into a room of everyday use.
Awards & Publications
2012 Washingtonian/ AIA DC;
Residential Architecture Award
Architecture DC, Summer 2012, “Twenty-First-Century Vibe for Old Rowhouses” by Denise Liebowitz
Washingtonian Magazine, June 2012, “Stunning Spaces” by Mary Clare Glover
HOUSE ON MONTE SANO MOUNTAIN
HUNTSVILLE, AL
Sited on a mountain top in northeast Alabama this house overlooks the city of Huntsville to the west and the mountains of Tennessee to the north. The project comprises a 10,000 sq. ft. main house and, at the bluff’s edge, a pool and poolhouse. The combination of site, program and climate required a solution that is both monumental and intimate. The design is informed by the most essential architectural issues: mass/void, light/shadow, assembly and materiality.
Awards & Publications
2003 Washington Chapter AIA;
Merit Award in Architecture Luxury Home Quarterly, July 2011, “Huntsville Residence”
