DC International School

DC International School

Application: Walls

Building Type: K-12 Education

Built in the late 1920s and early 1930s as a nurse’s dormitory at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Delano Hall got only two of its planned three wings. For decades, the large building sat as an “F” rather than an “E.” Walter Reed closed in 2011, after more than 100 years of operation, and by the end of the decade Delano Hall was transformed into two public charter schools: DC International School (DCI), a middle and high school, and Latin American Montessori Bilingual (LAMB), an elementary school, with 1,750 students combined. DCI occupies part of 180,000 square-foot building including the new wing, which houses the art rooms, science labs, and gymnasium—spaces that could not be accommodated in the old building’s narrow footprint.

Perkins Eastman DC was the architect that designed the new wing of the DC International School. The architects looked to the elements of Delano Hall that are painted white: the eaves and cornices, cupolas, and window frames, but mainly the porch that faces the athletic field between the central wing and addition. With white spandrel panels and brick pilasters, the porch has a strong vertical rhythm that the architects carried through to the alternating glazing and Swisspearl fiber-cement panels wrapping the gymnasium. The architects initially rendered a version of their design with brick on all sides, but the view from the field begged for something that broke from tradition: the Swisspearl Reflex panels in Champagne 9290 achieved that, while relating to the light-colored accents on Delano Hall.

The three walls of Swisspearl sit atop a base of concrete block: a reference to the one-story datum of the existing building and a perceptually solid base for the addition. In a subtle detail, the Swisspearl panels overlap the concrete by one block, wedding the two materials while also expressing the thinness of the fiber cement.

From the overlap, the Swisspearl panels ascend to the roofline in two panels sizes (2 × 4 feet, and 2 × 8 feet) that are composed in three-part alternating rows, echoing the English bond coursing of Delano Hall’s brick. Although riveted to meet the school’s budget, the matching heads don’t register until up close. However, the result is far from monolithic: the two panel sizes yield appealing variations in shading that are visible regardless of the uniform Champagne color.

The addition’s brick façades indicate continuity with the old, while the contemporary elevations covered in Swisspearl signal change: of function, of users, and of attitude.

Preservation + Protection Systems, Inc. (PPSI) worked with Perkins Eastman to help select the Swisspearl Reflex panel which has a finish causing subtle light refraction and tonal variation in each panel, making the fiber cement panel look almost stone-like.