A 10-minute walk from the White House on 1301 Pennsylvania Avenue, a light-flooded and energy-efficient state-of-the-art office building was constructed with rooms that can be naturally ventilated - unlike conventional American office buildings.

Highly transparent unitized façade featuring large glass surfaces with 634 motorized openable windows, opening partly to the inside and partly to the outside, a glazed curtain wall on the south side and a large walkable glass roof on the terrace at level 13. Glazed standard units with stainless steel grilles and sheet metal parapets, almost quadratic in shape, create a grid structure on the outer skin of the building. The largest façade units are 3.05 x 5.7 m (10 x 19 ft) in size. Motorized vents can be opened centrally for night cooling as well as individually. Lobby façade on the ground floor consisting of 8.3 m (27 ft) long structural glass fins to which the vertical glass panels (up to 15 sqm/161 sq ft in size) are attached. Entrance to the building is provided by an all-glass revolving door.

The main façade is glazed with insulating glass. At the outside, 8 mm (5/16”) float glass and high performance coating, 12 mm (15/32”) air space between the glass panes, and 8 mm toughened safety glass at the inside. At the unitized façade of the south side of the building, penetrations allow for fixing the 790 sqm (8,500 sq ft) all-glass curtain wall façade which is attached in front of the unitized façade at a distance of 1.2 m (4 ft) via a tension-compression bar system. Glass panels up to a size of 12 sqm (129 sq ft) are attached to these stainless steel fixings. The laminated glass of the curtain-type all-glass façade is composed of 12 mm heat-strengthened glass, 1.52 mm (1/16”) sentry plus interlayer and 12 mm heat-strengthened glass. The ground floor accommodates a 9-meter (30-feet) wide garage door, while level 12 is equipped with a 17-meter (56-feet) long folding door system with 15 glass folding partitions.

Walkable and nearly horizontal glass roof on the terrace at level 13. This 54 sqm (580 sq ft) stick-system roof is glazed with translucent anti-slip glass panes. At the outside, anti-slip frit full coverage, lite floor XtraGrip with AUSM1Ws color, laminated glass with 10 mm (25/64”) heat-soak tested toughened safety glass, 1.52 mm PVB interlayer, 10 mm heat-strengthened glass, 1.52 mm PVB interlayer, 10 mm heat-strengthened glass with 16 mm (5/8”) cavity between glass panes and interior panel with laminated glass 6 mm (15/64”) heat-strengthened glass, 1.52 mm PVB interlayer, 6 mm heat-strengthened glass and low-e coating. An expanded metal panel made of perforated sheet metal - an eye-catcher of the 1,930 sqm (20,800 sq ft) unitized façade in the roof area - was used to provide a screen for the technical area, with standard units of 3.1 x 3.6 m (10 x 12 ft) in size.