TechWorld Plaza

May 14, 2022 | TechWorld Plaza, Washington D.C. (USA).

It was fascinating to learn about TechWorld, its vision and the drama of how its realization unfolded as it collided with the reality of time, money and the effort that goes into projects like these. Here are a few interesting reads for the curious - TechWorld Plaza Searching for Identity and TechWorld Plan for DC Comes Under Fire.

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[Source: Tim Evanson]

Tech World was constructed in pieces by the Smith-Williams Group, a limited partnership formed by two regional construction companies. The 15-story Renaissance Washington Hotel was the first to go up, in 1986. The 12-story 800 K Street NW went up next, in 1989, and the 12-story 801 I Street NW went up last in 1991.
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A bridge -- eight stories above the street, and itself four stories high -- conntects the two towers.

I work near TechWorld and before the pandemic when I wasn't working remotely I walked by it often. Parts of it were still under construction then and it was near a Taco Bamba that used to be one of my go to spots for lunch. Few years later when my child had chorus practice at the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church near TechWorld every Saturday, I spent many hours sitting in between the buildings or outside the Carnegie Library that has the Apple store. The geometric shapes and the three dimesional space TechWorld occupied was something I fell in love with. One of my favorite views was from the Carnegie Library facing TechWorld as the corridor extended all the way till the National Portrait Gallery.

The west side of the building is U-Shaped and has a space surrounded by buildings that opens in the direction facing the buildings in the east. It had a lone tree, a bush, some benches and was open to the sky at the top and I found it oddly beautiful. It is only later that I learnt that the original vision of the building had imagined all of this much differently and that the east side was supposed to mirror the west side, but due to numerous reasons a different building ended up being built.