Is that Otis and NH? What’s with that nasty outside ladderwell that they added? holy crap that looks awful.

Whatever that crap is, it’s snowing on Otis Street. We’re trying not to inhale! And yes, it is hideous!!!

The existing brick was beautiful and in good condition. I think they had done a good job matching the new brick too. There was no reason to cover it and now it looks absolutely awful!

Oh and btw, they originally tried to add a fourth floor but fortunately someone caught that it’d be taller than allowed by zoning and stopped them.

This is just hideous. The only hope is that buildings such as this and the even worse pop up across the street will simply not sell. Enough examples like that, and perhaps architects will have a little more respect for the integrity of the original structure. In Boston’s historic neighborhoods (where I once lived) nothing like this was ever allowed to happen. A travesty.

This project had no architect involvement. I approached the GC when they were constructing the fourth floor and he showed me the drawings (no fourth floor on the plans BTW). The permit drawings were done by a structural engineer. No slam on structural engineers (I work with them every day) but the combination of only a permit set & a contractor overflowing with artistic license is a recipe for disaster. If you want a nicely designed addition, hire an architect for a fully designed set of drawings. It’s too bad that DC does not require an architect to design projects of this size. If they did, we would have much less of this junk going up.

Even though I DETEST these pop-up additions, they can be done nicely. Just look at the one on east side of 10th street near the intersection of Otis. It’s a very nice addition.

FYI, they “crap” they are putting on the exterior of the house is EIFS. It’s a base layer of white styrofoam glued to the brick and then coated with a layer of stucco.