Located at the western edge of Old Town Alexandria’s historic core, The Braystone at 1300 King Street weaves preservation, historic narrative, and innovation into a unified urban response.
Rethinking The Future Awards 2026
Third Award | Mixed Use (Built)
Project Name: The Braystone
Category: Mixed Use (Built)
Studio Name: Winstanley Architects & Planners
Design Team: Michael Winstanley AIA, Leejung Hong
Area: 62,000 gsf
Year: 2023
Location: Alexandria, VA
Consultants: Owner / Contractor: The Holladay Corporation
Photography Credits: Anice Hoachlander
Render Credits:
Other Credits:
The project reactivates a prominent corner through the restoration of two 19th-century masonry storefronts and the introduction of a four-story, 55,000-square-foot mixed-use building with 32 condominium residences above retail. Inspired by the site’s craft-based past, the design introduces new density while honoring the scale and texture of its historic context.
Central to the project is the sensitive restoration of two early 1800s Federal-style commercial structures, once occupied by wheelwrights who fabricated iron-rimmed wheels essential to Alexandria’s mercantile economy. These historic buildings now serve as architectural anchors.
The new addition responds through contrast and clarity. The contemporary structure wraps the site in a quiet, L-shaped mass, stepping back along both street frontages to visually defer to the historic buildings. Its most distinctive gesture is the custom-fabricated metal tracery along the retail frontage, conceived as a modern abstraction rooted in both the site’s legacy as a wheelwright’s workshop and Old Town’s tradition of wrought iron gates, balconies, and ornamental metalwork. The tracery forms a layered montage of circular geometries, forged patterns, and radial motifs, transforming these influences into a cohesive narrative of craft, industry, and place. It offers both aesthetic and performative value, adding rhythm, shade, and layered visual depth to the street.
This project is more than a building; it mediates preservation and progress. By restoring its historic structures and expressing their artisanal and industrial past through a contemporary lens, The Braystone, becomes a design that is both respectful and forward-looking. It reflects Old Town not as a static artifact, but as a living place—where architectural memory and modern life coexist with elegance and purpose.
