The Edison at Union Market Washington, DC

Services Provided

Landscape Architecture
Design
Documentation

People Involved

Tim Bragan
Lyn Wenzel

Residents of a six-story mixed-use apartment building enjoy a series of terraced courtyard amenity spaces, including an outdoor lounge, dining grove, and lawn play area.

The Edison is a six-story mixed-use apartment and retail building located in the Union Market district of Washington, DC. The project scope includes retail streetscape on three sides of the building as well as a densely programmed interior courtyard amenity terrace. 

The courtyard terrace’s spatial organization is simple, classical, and effective: a series of three programmatically distinct and spatially diverse zones are arrayed along a central axis. Differing threshold conditions articulate specific relationships between the spaces and allow them to be used individually or in concert. In order to meet local stormwater requirements, the design team devised a series of integral stormwater retention and treatment planters that capture runoff from the building’s roof. Located at the edges of the courtyard, the planters also screen a series of walk-out terraces for individual dwelling

units at the courtyard level. The first terrace zone is directly accessible from the interior amenity space and serves as an outdoor lounge with generous furnishings, sculptural fire pits, and a distinctive vertical fountain that gently echoes through the courtyard. The fountain cascades into a small pool where users can cool their feet on warm summer afternoons and also acts to screen an ADA ramp which provides access to the upper terrace zones beyond. The second terrace zone, conceived as a dining grove, is organized around a monumental granite grilling and dining console which is intended to celebrate Union Market’s culinary heritage while accommodating groups of various sizes. The courtyard’s central organizing axis terminates at the third terrace zone where a large mural presides over an intimate gathering area with a synthetic turf lawn underfoot and encircled by a sculptural wood bench.