Stay on top of the Greenroof & Greenwall World by subscribing here: The Kennedy Center’s first expansion since its opening in 1971, the REACH is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ historic, $250 million expansion project. A living memorial for President John F. Kennedy, the REACH is envisioned as a 21st-century cultural campus and arts incubator. A 16-day Opening Festival was held in September 2019 featuring more than 1,000 artists and 500 free events. Visitors can walk through a 35 ginkgo tree grove anchoring the south end (since Kennedy was the 35th United States president), watch a free outdoor simulcast performance projected on a wall, or stroll to the reflecting pool and more. Designed by Steven Holl Architects with BNIM, the REACH is a marvel of architecture and engineering — particularly the massive green roof that covers the campus, developed with Hollander Design Landscape Architects. Defined by curving white titanium concrete walls, three signature pavilions stretch across the sweeping public lawn overlooking the Potomac River. Buried under the majority of the property, the 72,000 square-foot expansion houses classrooms, 10 interior stages, performance and rehearsal space. With slopes ranging from 0 to nearly 100%, approximately 69,000 square feet of overstructure green roofs cover the expansion.
American Hydrotech provided insulation and waterproofing to the entire project. The REACH features four complex swoop designs which start as a flat green roof and rotate into vertical walls. Due to the complexity of the three-dimensional swoops, a test mock-up was devised beforehand by James Myers Roofing, American Hydrotech and Sempergreen called “The Ramp” and it was checked on monthly to work out any potential problems before installation. Hydrotech’s GardNet assembly provides soil stabilization for the swoops. Three of the swoops employed Sempergreen’s sedum tiles, and the fourth swoop along the Potomac River is planted with perennial grasses. The media substrate for the swoops evolved as the green roof corkscrewed into a green wall. Sempergreen USA and Knauf Urbanscape designed a mix that starts with LiteTop soil from American Hydrotech and merges slowly into a LiteTop/Urbanscape mineral wool mixture, which in turn merges slowly into the vertical section of 100% green wall mineral wool from Urbanscape inside Hydrotech’s GardNet. Currently, the REACH is in the process of achieving LEED Gold certification. Merging architecture and landscape, the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ the REACH is a lyrical extension and Washington, DC’s latest cultural landmark.
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Greenroofs.com Featured Project 11/11/19 video courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; image ©Steven Holl Architects and photo credits ©Richard Barnes and Ana Meyer courtesy of the Kennedy Center, Sempergreen USA and American Hydrotech.
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