Clear As Crystal

Laura Fisher Kaiser -- Interior Design, 10/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

With its office and apartment towers and underground malls, Crystal City was considered avant-garde when it sprang up in the 1960's amid the brownfields of Northern Virginia. Here was the urban village of the future, where people could live, work, and shop without ever, God forbid, having to go outside.

Today, this cliché of urban sterility has again become a hub of forward thinking, with pedestrian esplanades, street-level stores and restaurants, and a new generation of occupants. Among the newcomers is an office by Envision. Registered in the LEED program for commercial interiors, this is the new headquarters of National Datacast, a small for-profit subsidiary of Crystal City tenant PBS.

The 6,500-square-foot space declares its unconventionality from the start with a reception lounge that foregoes a receptionist altogether. Instead, it's a living area that morphs into a party room when an ash-veneered panel slides back to reveal a wet bar. A delicious shade of blue extends up a wall and across an unfinished concrete ceiling, glimpsed through slots in a floating panel.

"The ceiling could have been more finished," Envision senior associate David Kay says. "But this gives a sense that there's something more beyond." It also establishes the office's theme of overlapping planes.

A wall of pivoting glass panels can open the lounge to the conference room, which surveys Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Metro tracks, the Potomac River, and busy roads. "You've got all the modes of transportation going by. Planes, trains, ships, cars," Envision principal Ken Wilson says—as a helicopter swoops past. "It's very dynamic from the second you enter."

Enclosed by fixed glass panels, the smaller operations center houses a battery of HDTV screens showcasing the company's national network of digital broadcast stations. The communal desk here runs along a backlit wall of frosted glass, behind which is the all-important server room. This relative transparency, CEO Jacqueline Weiss says, instills confidence in clients.

Environmentally friendly strategies throughout the office include materials with high recycled contents, flooring of rapidly renewable bamboo or cork, low- or zero-VOC finishes, and millwork with agri-fiber cores and no added urea-formaldehyde. In some areas, mineral-wool ceiling tile made of 72 percent recycled material reflects the light from indirect-direct T5 linear fixtures designed for low ceilings. As Wilson points out, "You couldn't do this five years ago, having a linear fixture at 8 feet. You needed at least 18 inches of clearance."

In other areas, linear T5 fixtures add drama while also helping to maintain a lighting load of less than 1 watt per square foot. Both fixture types work in conjunction with occupancy sensors and daylight-responsive controls. With glass-fronted executive offices along perimeter walls, natural light is extensive.

"The funny thing is that the clear glass walls were not part of the original brief," Wilson reveals. "Every time we met with the client, the office walls got more transparent, from frosted to a film pattern to nothing at all."

A leather-covered sofa by Lars Pettersson and a birch table by Eero Koivisto sit in the lounge at National Datacast in Crystal City, Virginia.

From top: The reception area's floating ceiling is scored with 6-inch-wide slots. Jeffrey Bernett's chairs and an Eero Saarinen table cluster on the bamboo floor at the end of reception near the operations center, where HDTV screens display content broadcast by National Datacast.

From top: A wall of pivoting glass panels encloses the conference room, with its chairs by Charles and Ray Eames and its custom cherry-topped table. In the lounge, Saarinen's chair sits underneath energy-conserving indirect-direct linear fixtures.

Clockwise from top left: A hallway's wall of backlit frosted glass conceals the server room. Custom workstations, veneered in ash, feature Corian ledges fitted with panels of recycled plastic. Florence Knoll designed the sofa in the CEO's office as well as the marble-topped table, which was specially wired to serve as a desk.

SOFA, COFFEE TABLE, SIDE CHAIRS (LOUNGE): SWEDESE. SOFA UPHOLSTERY: ELMO LEATHER. FLOORING: EXPANKO. TACKBOARD PANELS: NOVAWALL SYSTEMS. TACKBOARD FABRIC, LOUNGE CHAIR (LOUNGE), CHAIR FABRIC, TABLE (RECEPTION), SOFA, SIDE TABLE, DESK, CREDENZA (OFFICE): KNOLL. CHAIRS (RECEPTION): BB ITALIA. FLOORING: GREENWOOD PRODUCTS. RECESSED CEILING FIXTURES (RECEPTION, CONFERENCE ROOM, HALL): LIGHTOLIER. CHAIRS (OPERATIONS CENTER, CONFERENCE ROOM, OFFICE AREA), CONFERENCE CHAIRS (OFFICE): HERMAN MILLER. CREDENZA TOP MATERIAL (CONFERENCE ROOM), LEDGE MATERIAL (OFFICE AREA): DUPONT. MILLWORK VENEER (CONFERENCE ROOM, OFFICE AREA): DANZER GROUP. CEILING SYSTEM (CONFERENCE ROOM, OFFICE AREA, OFFICE): USG. CONFERENCE TABLES (CONFERENCE ROOM, OFFICE): NIENKMPER. LINEAR FIXTURES (LOUNGE): SEMPERLUX. CAFÉ TABLES: EMECO. REFRIGERATOR: GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY. DISHWASHER: ASKO. CABINET SURFACING: ABET. WORKSTATION PANELS (OFFICE AREA): 3FORM. LINEAR FIXTURES (OFFICE AREA, OFFICE): FOCAL POINT. DESK CHAIR UPHOLSTERY (OFFICE): EDELMAN LEATHER. CARPET: LEES CARPETS. MILLWORK: COLUMBIA WOODWORKING. AUDIOVISUAL CONSULTANT: CERAMI ASSOCIATES. MEP: GHT. CONSTRUCTION MANAGER: HIMES ASSOCIATES. GENERAL CONTRACTOR: RAND CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION.