Five years after breaking ground, The REACH at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts celebrated its grand opening this past Saturday. Designed by Steven Holl Architects with BNIM, The REACH is the Kennedy Center's first expansion project in its 48-year history. The Kennedy Center was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and opened in 1971.

Comprising of three interconnected, geometric pavilions, the expansion adds some 72,000 square-feet of rehearsal, education, and flexible indoor and outdoor spaces to allow the Kennedy Center to provide enriching artistic and cultural opportunities and events to visitors. 

The windows of each pavilion are positioned to provide views through the full depth of the interior. “Through etching the glass, and sandwiching translucent white films between layers, luminous surfaces diffuse light deep into the interior, and glow outward at night,” SHA describes.

Collaborating closely with the designers, a team of Arup's engineers and consultants developed a holistic building systems strategy — including a closed-loop ground source heat rejection system, advanced temperature controls, and an under-floor concrete trench system — that optimizes energy performance, all while remaining largely unseen. The project's void slab design uses plastic balls embedded in the concrete to reduce overall deadweight and allow for longer spans, Arup describes.

The project's landscape design provides large and intimate spaces to gather and visit at any time of the day. Simulcast projections of live performances will be projected onto the north wall of the largest pavilion, in front of a broad lawn.

The landscape also features 35 gingko trees, as well as a reflecting pool and mahogany landscape deck that were built in the same dimensions and mahogany boards of the PT109, the WWII boat that President Kennedy commanded. A new pedestrian bridge that “floats” over the park way provides easy access to and from Rock Creek Trail and the Georgetown waterfront. With The REACH, the Kennedy Center is transformed into a more inviting landscape open to the surrounding city.