Marie Reed Community Center

With views toward the Washington Monument, the Marie Reed Community Learning Center is a four-story complex that houses a public elementary school, recreation center, a health clinic, children’s hospital, a women and infants care clinic and a head start infant day care. A glass curtainwall provides the transparency and civic presence along the street that the community desired. However, this curtainwall faces west, enduring brutal afternoon and early evening sun. A metal fabric system with large-scale etched graphics from GKD was specified to mitigate the solar impact while also reinforcing the organization’s name and purpose. Utilizing approximately 1,150 square feet of GKD’s Omega 1510 product, the material appropriately provides both transparency and a backdrop for the new building’s super-graphic.