KGPdesign studio

The Montgomery County Department of Transportation constructed two significant additions to the intersection between the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The additions greatly improved pedestrian access between these two facilities and better connected them to the Medical Center Metrorail Station. KGP, as the architect of the design-build team led by Clark Construction, finished the construction drawings and provided construction administration support through the completion of the project. The project included a new pedestrian tunnel connecting both sides of Rockville Pike to new pedestrian plazas and a new 130' deep high-speed elevator shaft and connector tunnel for the Medical Center Metrorail Station. With bedrock only 30' below grade, the contractors had to blast and clear the remaining 100' of this shaft. A 70' long tunnel at the bottom serves as a new mezzanine with kiosk and fare gates as well as an elevator lobby, which was mine to the existing station vault where a breakthrough was created. The design of this new station elevator lobby and the elevator headhouses at grade match Metro design standards and the aesthetics developed by KGP during the nearly identical addition at the Rosslyn Metrorail station.