Silver Sprung

The new $22 million Silver Spring Civic Building & Veteran’s Plaza, by Machado and Silvetti with Lukmire Partnership, opened to the public opened in 2010. Anton Grassl/ESTO, photographer.

By Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson 

Located less than eight miles from Washington, D.C., Silver Spring, Maryland is one of the many suburban spurs born out of the Nation’s Capital. Over the years, a shopping and business district grew up to serve the township’s 76,000 residents, but by the mid-1990s it was evident that downtown Silver Spring needed a boost. The unincorporated township within Montgomery County had blossomed into a bustling suburb, yet it never had a proper civic space—a central area to root its public functions and daily business. Until now. 

Veteran’s Plaza and the Civic Building took their cues from the surrounding urban plan as the project acts as the terminus of commercial corridor between two neighborhoods. Anton Grassl/ESTO, photographer.

In 2010, the $22 million Silver Spring Civic Building & Veteran’s Plaza opened to the public. The 44,555 square-foot building and 27,660 square-foot plaza are the cornerstone of a public-private effort to revitalize a stagnated downtown and create a home for both the township’s civic functions as well as its public celebrations and daily life. Boston’s Machado and Silvetti Associates (MSA) was selected in 2003 to design the project after winning an invited design competition and Lukmire Partnership, with offices in Arlington and Annapolis, which served as Construction Administration Representative. MSA’s brief for the building: create a permanent and highly visible space for the Silver Spring Regional Center for town management functions, incorporate an all-purpose community center, and house the non-profit Round House Theater group. The project is at the end of a long corridor of multi-story businesses and shops, including the 550,000 square-foot headquarters of the Discovery Corporation, parent company of the Discovery Channel. 

The approximately 66,000 square-foot site once held a two-story garage, but that had been torn down years ago and replaced with a large swath of Astroturf to host summer concerts and Silver Spring’s famous Jazzfest, an annual event that attracts thousands of people. Jazzfest proved to be a driving force in the site plan. “The event was a thread running through the project,” says MSA’s project director Paul Schlapobersky, AIA. “We needed to make a home for Silver Spring’s largest annual event and deal with the challenges of designing a building and an out door space that wouldn’t feel empty for the rest of the year.” 

Function and prefunction spaces inside are flexible enough to accommodate a range of groups to use the civic center. The 66,000 square-foot site hosts Silver Spring’s annual Jazzfest, which proved to be a driving force in project’s design. Anton Grassl/ESTO, photographer.

To that end, the architects created an exterior pavilion and ice rink to help bolster activity downtown in the winter months. The ice rink is nestled into a natural indentation on the site’s southern side and juts into an exterior plaza that fronts the building. In the summer, it is envisioned that people could lunch in the shade of the covered rink using tables and chairs provided by the town. 

Inside, the design team sought to make the building’s functions (and spaces) visible to each other. Anton Grassl/ESTO, photographer.

Siteplan courtesy Machado and Silvetti. (click to enlarge)

The surrounding context of the site proved a challenge. A block north, the area is primarily residential. To the south, it’s commercial. The design team mediated this zoning clash by distinguishing the building’s facades. The most visible gestures are south-facing, where the commercial activity lies. The project seems to unfold like one of those expandable travel cups, unfurling from the exterior into the interior with a progression of grand spaces. First, there is the outdoor plaza, created with the help of Massachusetts-based landscape architect Richard Burck Associates, Inc. This leads into a portico—a grand, two-story element that provides a proscenium for outdoor performances. A wall of glass and eight doors allow the pubic to flow in and out of the building, imbuing the structure with porosity. 

The spaces took their cue from the surrounding urban plan and the project acts as the terminus of a commercial corridor along Ellsworth Drive and the design references that pedestrian route. “There is a spine that runs through the building. It traces the line of the sidewalk of Ellsworth Drive,” Schlapobersky says. The line serves as the main organizing tool for the exterior and interior spaces, which are ordered along this axis. The outdoor “rooms” continue indoors with a pre-function space intended to serve as a gathering spot before events for the adjacent Grand Hall, a 5,300 square-foot room intended to house everything from meetings to weddings. This main level also includes a lobby, a 1,650 square-foot indoor courtyard, two activity rooms, and an educational classroom for the Round House Theater School. 

Dark gray, fiber cement exterior cladding contrasts with the use of the warmer, tropical hardwood ipe. Anton Grassl/ESTO, photographer.

The project seems to unfold like one of those expandable travel cups with outdoor “rooms," performance spaces and seating areas, and a two-story portico. Anton Grassl/ESTO, photographer.

The upper level houses the Silver Spring Regional Center, conference and activity rooms, and an informal gathering spot that overlooks the pre-function space below. A lower level has additional administrative and classroom spaces as well as mechanical and storage. With such diverse activities and clients under one roof, MSA endeavored to honor the town’s goal of an open, public space by creating a lively interior that affords views to other activities. The building is equipped with WiFi and breakout areas with sofas and armchairs that allow the public to pop in and log on. “Internally, we wanted the building’s functions to be visible to one another so that you could be in a community meeting and look up across the courtyard and see someone working in one of the break-out areas,” Schlapobersky explains. To the north, the building defers to its residential neighbors and the scale is broken into a more demure, single-story element. MSA recognized that the building doesn’t have a “back” to hide mechanical systems, so great care was taken in masking things like air handling units. 

“We treated it as a building that has four public facades,” Schlapobersky says. The building understands its dual role as the arbiter of community and civic engagement and a showpiece for downtown. As such, the material palette provides a compelling contrast to the surrounding pastel and brick structures with parapet corners. “A lot of thought and conversation went into materials,” Schlapobersky says. “The building had to fit in on the urban level with the way it tucked into the site, but then we wanted it to be like the jewel in the crown. It would have a different quality from the surrounding buildings.” 

The outdoor “rooms” continue indoors with a pre-function space intended to serve as a gathering spot before events for the adjacent Grand Hall, a 5,300 square-foot room intended to house everything from meetings to weddings. Anton Grassl/ESTO, photographer.

Perhaps the most striking element is the dark gray fiber cement exterior cladding, which contrasts with a tropical hardwood called ipe (or, alternatively, epay). “The combo of the wood and fiber cement made a striking composition,” says Schlapobersky. “The wood went a long way to making quite a warm building.” 

Project: Silver Spring Civic Building and Veteran’s Plaza 

Architect: Machado and Silvetti Associates (Paul Schlapobersky, AIA, project director) with The Lukmire Partnership, Inc. (Nicholas Germano, AIA, partner-in-charge) 

Landscape Architect: Richard Burck Associates 

Contractor: Costello Construction 

Owner: Montgomery County, Maryland 

SELECTED RESOURCES: 

SLIDING STOREFRONT: NanaWall Systems; MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL, PLUMBING, and FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEER: Setty & Associates, Ltd.; CIVIL ENGINEER: Loiederman Soltesz Associates; STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Richmond So Engineers, Inc.; CIVIC BUILDING ARTWORK: Francie Hester Studio; PLAZA ARTWORK: Toby Mendez Studios; ICE RINK DESIGN: TriState Ice Management