225 North Calvert Street
225 North Calvert Street
Monument Realty, 2018
After purchasing the 551,000 square-foot building for $4 million, developers began the complete re-use renovation of this 19-story behemoth by gutting the former banking operations center down to its concrete skeleton. Besides the new luxurious and modern apartments, architects re-skinned the building with a colorful exterior façade that livens up what was a dark and dismal urban block. The problem facing the team was how to handle the five floors of parking in all their concrete glory spanning floors 2 through 6. While a welcome amenity for residents, it proved the least visually appealing aspect of an otherwise now-vibrant building. The vision for the parking garage façade—an area roughly 50 feet tall by 300 feet wide and wrapping around a corner of the building—was to envelope it in something that would work with the new building’s appearance and further portray the personality of the place. Besides being attractive and relevant, the covering needed to have the functionality to hide the garage as well as let air flow through. The outcome? A hidden garage with natural ventilation in a remarkable building donning a welcoming façade to which people can now connect.
Environments
Illustration
Placemaking
Supergraphics
The goals for this graphic treatment included complementing the building’s new design, concealing the garage and eliminating the need for a mechanical ventilation system—all while appealing to the millennial audience of young professionals seeking a modern place to call home.
Taking cues from Baltimore’s tradition of painted screens—folk art scenes painted on window screens—we created a mural depicting life in Baltimore that includes city landmarks and people biking, jogging and dog-walking on a woven vinyl mesh.
Photography
Sam Kittner (1, 4); Courtesy of Monument Realty (2, 3); Ron Solomon (5, 6, 7)
National & International Press
Signs of the Times Magazine
The Baltimore Sun
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