The design and development of Sage, a high-rise apartment building in Arlington, Virginia, was impacted significantly by the announcement of the city as the site of Amazon’s HQ2. SK+I Architecture says the building was initially intended to compete in the young professional market in Crystal City and Northern Virginia with larger units while being cost effective with interior finishes.
However, with the Amazon HQ2 announcement and the accompanying promise of 25,000 new jobs coming to Northern Virginia in the ensuing decade, the market became “much less risk-averse and financially constrained,” says SK+I. The challenge for the team was that the building had already been entitled through a very strict process in Arlington. To accommodate the potential population influx, the architect made the units slightly smaller and added a unit to each floor—bringing the total to 306—while not altering the exterior. The interior finishes, lighting, sliding door hardware, framed mirrors in bathrooms, and under-cabinet lighting were improved.
The building’s exterior creates the appearance of stacked boxes above a tall, mixed-use ground floor. Each box contains a flush façade when that portion of the building aligns with the building restriction line and sawtooths on the orthogonal when accommodating the other site angle. The boxes’ sawtooth articulations alternatively look north toward the Pentagon or south toward the early stages of National Landing in Arlington.
The prospects for retail for the building improved with the HQ2 being located across the street, so the fitness area for Sage was moved to the penthouse to accommodate more retail. The retail is now located in the southern portion of the building, kitty-corner to Whole Foods, which acts as the retail anchor for the neighborhood. The relocated penthouse fitness area has glass doors that flip to connect it to the outdoor rooftop. The fitness area joins group seating, a fire feature, a clubroom, a media room, and co-working space on the rooftop, offering views of Washington, D.C., the Pentagon, and National Landing.
The finished project contains 18 floors of residential, a double-height lobby, a small mezzanine level, an amenity penthouse level, and 148 parking spaces underground. The double-height lobby features a biophilic art piece and an open staircase leading to the leasing office and makerspace. The LEED Silver-certified project is designed to exceed baseline performance by 14% due to the building’s energy recovery system, known as a Dedicated Outdoor Air System.
