World Wildlife Fund Headquarters
Architects & Firms
Washington, D.C.
Owner: World Wildlife Fund Inc.
Location: 1250 24th Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20037
Program: 12,937 square feet of office space—divided into a north office and a south office—on the ground floor of the World Wildlife Fund’s eight-story building in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Envision Design originally renovated the organization’s offices in 2001–2002; this project transformed underused retail space, office space, and a former restaurant into two English basement offices, each featuring open-plan workstations, private offices, a conference room, storage space, and a kitchen. The two spaces are divided by the bottom level of an atrium that cuts through the building. During the renovation, Envision also undertook a LEED EB (version 2) upgrade for the entire building: the team made improvements to 25-year-old systems, including updating air-handling units to harness freely available cool air in winter. They also reduced water usage by installing low-flow fixtures and by landscaping with local, drought-tolerant plants, and added a green roof to help reduce stormwater runoff.
Design Concept and Solution: Charged with designing a model office to inform the World Wildlife Fund’s plans for future offices, the architects set out to create an open, collaborative, sustainable prototype. Since they were working with two partly underground rooms, giving the offices a sense of openness and enough daylight access proved a challenge. To add height to the spaces and lessen the feeling of being in a basement, the architects left the corridor ceilings open to the building’s concrete structure. In a departure from the organization’s existing offices, they incorporated large areas of open-plan workstations and reduced the size of private offices, allowing daylight to penetrate farther into each room. The Envision team painted the walls (and the drywall portions of the ceilings) bright white to reflect more light, and they chose light fixtures with daylight sensors for the areas near windows to help conserve energy. The architects used a lot of glass to avoid cutting off segments of the offices from views and light: each conference room is faced with glass, and the private offices—many of them bordering windows—incorporate glass, too. Modular workstations and demountable partitions give the organization the flexibility to adapt their space as their needs change. FSC-certified wood and neutral carpet tile round out the offices’ simple, clean, sustainable palette.
Completion Date:
First floor north office space: December 2010
First floor south office space: August 2011
LEED EB v2 certification: August 2011
Green roof: March 2010
Gross square footage:
First floor north office space: 3,682 SF
First floor south office space: 9,255 SF
Building total: 251,707 SF
Construction cost:
First floor north office space: $1,239,010
First floor south office space: $1,613,463
PeopleOwner: World Wildlife Fund Inc.
Architect:
Personnel in architect's firm who should receive special credit:
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Renderer(s) and credit as they should appear: CAD system, project management, or other software used: Archicad |
Products
Roofing
Doors Wood doors: Oskosh Door Company and VT Industries, Inc
Hardware Hinges: McKinney Closers: LCN Pulls: Voli Security devices: Card reader, Prop sensor, Magnetic lock, Infrared Sensor
Interior finishes Suspension grid: Armstrong Silhouette Demountable partitions: Inscape Inform
Cabinetwork and custom woodwork: Paints and stains: Sherwin Williams Duron Plastic laminate: See above
Resilient flooring: Carpet: Lees Carpet, “It’s a Sign” Collection
Furnishings Workstations: Inscape: Platform and Storwall
Lighting Downlights: Lightolier – LED c420LEDDL Task lighting: Human Scale Controls: WattStopper
Plumbing Restroom Aerator: Niagrara Conservation .5gpm Restroom Urinal: Zurn Ecovantage Fitness Room Shower Head: Utility Savers Water Saver Supreme Showerhead |
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