LERA led the structural design of this 450,000-sf (41,806-sm) office building in Washington, D.C. Home to CBS’s Washington Bureau (complete with television studios), among other premier tenants, the building’s design combines the traditional typology of D.C. office buildings with an all-glass curtain wall made of curved floor-to-ceiling panels that maximize transparency and yield panoramic, column-free views of the city’s “Golden Triangle” business district. The 900 identical insulated-glass panels that compose the façade are curved through a heat roller tempering process and are structurally efficient, meeting wind load requirements and enabling a thinner monolithic outer lite than normal, thus enhancing transparency.

Each perimeter column is pulled in 12 ft from the façade, with the ceiling of each floor tapered to the depth of the structural slab at the exterior, further emphasizing the permeability of the building. Such thin, cantilevered floor slabs were enabled through the use of post-tensioned concrete.