601 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

An 11-story commercial office building was constructed on a premium real estate site near the heart of downtown Washington, DC. Visitors enter the space via a full-height atrium lobby, featuring 114 vertical feet of monolithic glass panels, supported by horizontal pipe trusses and vertical dead load tension rods.

The architectural intent was to create a contrast between the atrium façade and the primary building’s pre-cast skin by maximizing transparency at the atrium. TriPyramid worked closely with W&W Glass on the design of the horizontal trusses, trying to optimize member sizes and clevis-end geometry to match the clean lines and spacing the architect envisioned. The 84-foot long truss weldments were fabricated and painted in TriPyramid’s California facility and trucked to site on custom frames.

TriPyramid designed custom clamp fittings and couplers to connect A22-0750 stainless steel rods to the trusses and simultaneously support Pilkington 905 Fittings (by others) which connect the glass to complete the system. Integrating multiple functions into the rod coupler hardware minimized the visual impact of the vertical structure.