Deanwood Community Center & Library

Washington, DC

The new Deanwood Community Center and Library is an innovative joint-use facility that features educational, recreational, and athletic programs for all ages. Housed within the building are the Early Care & Education Center, a state-of-the-art recreation pool, a sound recording studio, and a public library. The wide variety of programs serves both the local community and others, drawing patrons from across the city.

Sited at the north end of an existing 5.8-acre park in Northeast DC, the new community center integrates with and anchors the north end of the park, helping to define the public open spaces between it and the Ronald Brown Middle School at the southern border of the park. This location ensures that the park will continue to offer a flexible configuration of play fields for both the school and the community center and that the new building respects and enhances the park’s existing landscape. For example, an existing row of monumentally-scaled Willow Oak trees was integrated into the design, helping to distinguish the smaller-scaled outdoor spaces adjacent to the building (child play areas and gardens) from the larger play fields. These grand trees also define the pathway leading to a new courtyard created by the building.

This portion of the site provides the building with an identifiable address and front door on 49th Street while also providing views and convenient access to the building from the adjacent Deanwood Metro station and Minnesota Avenue.

The project is projected to attain LEED Silver certification.