If you see large orange red banners and signage pop up on the Bertie Backus building at UDC’s Lamond-Riggs campus, do not be surprised. UDC is carrying out a placemaking initiative across all three of its campuses. By this November, UDC wants to install large-scale exterior graphic applications on buildings across its campuses in order to create a stronger identifier for UDC’s campus spaces. This is completely separate from the renovations that the university will be making to the Lamond-Riggs campus that were approved as part of the Lamond-Riggs campus plan that went into effect earlier this year.

See UDC Placemaking Presentation to U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (September 2024)

I just happened to find this out when I was poking around the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) website looking for something else and noticed that UDC was on the CFA’s September meeting agenda. I listened to the meeting on September 19, 2024.

CFA members asked UDC for more images depicting how the applications would look in surrounding neighborhood context for all three campuses. Members asked about the rationale for the style, height, and other aspects of the applications. They mentioned that there was the potential for “visual clutter.” They asked how the applications would hold up in extreme weather and sunlight and what the placemaking plan would entail after the applications reached the end of their shelf life. One member asked specifically about the Lamond-Riggs campus and how the graphics would play against the large-scale development taking place across the street on South Dakota Avenue. The CFA asked UDC to continue working with CFA staff to refine the concepts.

UDC’s representatives explained that the buildings at the Van Ness campus are different sizes and so they wanted to create exterior graphics that would provide the “best impact” for viewers. They said the material would be a sort of mesh material that could be applied to the buildings in such a way that they could be removed without damaging the exterior of the buildings. They said that the material has a shelf life of five to six years, but the goal would be to evaluate their impact after about three years and decide what to do from there, maybe have rotating images to keep things fresh, I guess.

Lamond-Riggs campus

I emailed UDC after the CFA meeting to find out more about what they are planning for the Lamond-Riggs campus. They said that the initiative actually started out just for the Van Ness campus, but then someone decided to include the Old Congress Heights and Lamond-Riggs campuses to the project. UDC said that “although the intention is to give the same level of attention to all the three sites, [they] may need to prioritize based on the capacity for the signage fabricator to produce the proposed amount of signage on this short amount of time.”

I personally think because the Lamond-Riggs campus is already a sea of warm color, layering large-scale warm color applications on top of the warm orange red brick of the Bertie Backus building may be a bit overwhelming. I think the campus could stand to use a bit more cool, neutral, and base colors to provide a more interesting visual palette. I do not think that every treatment needs to be done in the school’s bold colors to provide a sense of place. I know that UDC wants to create a “cohesive, integrated Identity” across its campuses with these exterior graphics, but I think they should take into consideration that the single Bertie Backus building at the Lamond-Riggs campus is very different from the varied architecture of the Van Ness campus.

In general, I have been advocating for more beautification and a cohesive streetscape plan by the large property owners along the avenue. These property owners consist mainly of the Cafritz Foundation, the District government, and a couple of other entities.

I think the Cafritz Foundation has done a really nice job with landscaping and having a cohesive streetscape plan for its large property holdings on the west side of South Dakota Avenue (the completed portions anyways).

I cannot say the same for the city. I will forever remain baffled as to why District officials installed a seemingly random, haphazard mix of black and gray streetlamps along the corridor. It really did seem like they took whatever was left in the warehouse from other projects around the city and installed them here.

I kinda think we need a pause on putting up a bunch of large banners along the corridor and get some basics done first, like literally starting with black bases upon which to build a cohesive streestcape plan.