Work is now under way at East Gateway Pavilion at the historic St. Elizabeths Hospital in southeast Washington, D.C., with architects from Davis Brody Bond, together with Mayor Vincent C. Gray, celebrating the groundbreaking last week. The 16,000-square-foot pavilion’s site on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue—which splits St. Elizabeths into east and west campuses—will serve as a visual link between the two halves of the hospital, while also drawing in employees from the nearly complete Coast Guard headquarters on the west campus.
“The pavilion will be a destination for casual dining,” says Peter D. Cook, AIA, director of Davis Brody Bond’s Washington, D.C., office. “But it was also designed to be flexible, for a wide variety of uses. The community wanted to make sure this was a pavilion that could be utilized throughout the calendar year.” Under the 415-foot-long pavilion’s canopy will be space for open-air gatherings such as farmers markets and community meetings; an enclosed conference room toward the southeast end of the pavilion will provide a venue for off-season assemblies. Curbside food truck parking running the length of the pavilion will offer casual lunch options for both residents and staff. A 21,000-square-foot accessible roof, rising to a height of 23 feet at its apex, will offer views toward the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers over the rest of the historic hospital grounds.
Working with the District of Columbia’s Department of General Services, Davis Brody Bond, who won the competition for the pavilion in 2012, has included several sustainable features in the proposal, including rainwater harvesting and storage as well as 9,350 square feet of vegetated roof. The Gateway Pavilion is the first portion of a multiphase master plan for the grounds. General contractor KadCon Corp., is also working on the design/build project, which is expected to be complete by the end of August.
For more details and images of the St. Elizabeths East Gateway Pavilion, visit ARCHITECT's Project Gallery.
