Anacostia Community Museum

We designed a new facade to evoke the cylindrical towers of the 11th century city of Great Zimbabwe, the largest complex of ruins in Africa, and drew upon pattern motifs from the museum collection to inform the design.

The red brick of our addition uses African motifs suggestive of woven kente cloth, and diamond forms taken from the 1987 addition suggest adobe structures of West Africa.

The existing building became an embedded artifact between our addition at the front and another firm’s stair and loading dock upgrades at the back.
We retained and exposed the 1984 patterned exterior walls, now interior surfaces.