WAMO Competition

DISQUIET: Absence of bodily or mental quietness; disturbance; uneasiness, anxiety, worry; restlessness, unrest. INAUGURATE: To take omens from the flight of birds, to consecrate or install after taking such omens or auguries.

A GREAT INCLINED PLANE: The experience of the enormous crowds at the last inauguration provided the initial inspiration to extend the Mall with a great inclined viewing platform. At such important historic moments these crowds confirm and consecrate the peaceful transfer of power, while at other quotidian moments the great incline provides an important social space for the nation.

EXISTING CONDITIONS: A disordered landscape surrounds the approach to the Washington Monument, the product of an accretion of a long series of partial and provisional solutions. Traffic infrastructure, local and regional, was halted years ago and the incomplete deployment creates its own problems. In particular, the potential pedestrian access to the waterfront is obstructed by an outdated parkway system that serves primarily to move volumes of suburban traffic into and out of the city without addressing any means for pedestrians to walk from the Monument to the waterfront.

DESIGN PARTI: Two axes, intersecting at the Jefferson Pier, cut through the plane and give access to underground facilities. This crossing gesture, referring to the ancient Cardo and Decumanus, is a deliberate recreation of a foundation myth. Researching the cultural sources that inform the foundation myths of cities, we discovered the Latin root of 'Inauguration' was closely connected to the role of the augur in the ancient world. We woule argue that the ancient practice of the taking of auguries, the reading of the flight of birds, has a contemporary parallel in the reading of the crowds that might gather under the Monument and reveal the health of the nation.

CARDO+DECUMANUS: In Roman city planning dating back to the first Etruscan settlements, the Cardo Maximus was a north-south oriented street with shops and vendors, and served as a hub of economic life, and the Decumanus Maximus was the primary east-west road. The Forum was typically located at the intersection. In our proposal, the inclined plane takes the place of the Forum and the primary orientation is east towards the Capital and the sunrise, where the great national debates take place that determine the future course of the nation. Looking west, from the top of the great plane towards the sunset, lie the great national monuments of the past. The north-south axis orients the symbolic entry to the city from the pastoral to the urban.

VISTA: The obelisk is a uniquely scale-less abstraction, mute, formidable and mysterious. At a distance the size of the obelisk is unreadable. On arrival the obelisk is too large to be taken in and perception abruptly shifts to the haptic. Our proposal acknowledges this abrupt shift and does not attempt to introduce a new scale to mediate between them. The vista should also be understood as reciprocal. The approach to the Monument is characterized by looking at the great obelisk, arrival by looking from. This reciprocity reveals an important ambiguity. At certain moments the viewer or crowd is historic witness, at others, historic actor.

CIRCULATION: One of the critical failures of the existing grounds that surrounds the Monument is the difficulty posed by the parkway system for pedestrians to walk to the waterfront. We propose to: Consolidate the informal bus parking into a parking depot under the great plane between 14th and 15th streets; Consolidate the multiple lanes of parkway traffic into a boulevard and eliminate the water island that serves as a traffic circle at the base of 17th street; Eliminate the Kutz Bridge to complete the interrupted pedestrian boardwalk around the Tidal Basin; Add more bike stations and paths to reinforce this newly prioritized circulation pattern.

FLOOD CONTROL: The need to address both the subsidence of the waterfront edges and the likelihood of increased flooding has only focused more of our attention to the waterfront. We propose a relatively simple terracing of the waterfront edge to not only mediate the occasional rise in the water levels, but also accommodate the expected rise in tourism and the capacity to manage such crowds.

PROGRAM: We decided to keep the service program to the essential. Visitor Center: We propose to orient the four entry ramps around the Jefferson Pier and open a large sky-lit subterranean entry courtyard to accommodate a visitor center. Outdoor Theater: We propose a new design of the Sylvan Theater on the south slope of the Monument grounds as part of the new waterfront. Bus Parking: We propose a bus depot under the platform between 14th and 15th streets to alleviate congestion from informally parked tour buses.

SCALE: The scale of the Mall is national and should be understood as such. Agoraphobic as it may be, we do not think that this expression of power should in any way be diminished. Such an impulse only obfuscates the reality of and the responsibility for the deployment of power. We looked at both old and new public spaces.

A GREAT PUBLIC SPACE: Great public spaces are those where human activity is left free to express itself. As such, we propose a great stone platform with minimal elements except those for in-ground lighting, water nozzles to provide cooling mists during the hottest days, and in-ground attachment fixtures to accommodate temporary shelters for events and exhibitions. The stone paving should be large blocks of coarsely crystalline white marble that will require no maintenance and will gradually acquire the patina of a ruin.

A Great Inclined Plane
National Ideas Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds*

The Competition, launched in the summer of 2010, asked for ideas on ways to "make these iconic but unfinished grounds more welcoming, educational, and effectively used by the public for decades to come". The multi-stage process narrowed down over 500 entries from around the world to six finalists, and then invited the public to vote for "People's Choice" favorites.

A Great Inclined Plane, our winning proposal, draws its initial inspiration from the experience of the enormous crowds at the inauguration in 2008. The basic idea is to extend the Mall with a great inclined viewing platform that would bridge over the interrupting grade crossings at 14th and 15th streets. Two axes, referring to the ancient Cardo and Decumanus, that cut through the plane and intersect at the Jefferson Pier at an open courtyard underground, is a deliberate recreation of a foundation myth.

Watch Our Winning Presentation

More Info on WAMO Competition

*Exhibited at the National Building Museum