ARCHITECTURAL FOCUS
and envelope. These projections afford some units 270-degree views. The glazing on the perpendicular faces allows an inhabitant to look back at and past the building, sometimes opening sightlines west to Elliott Bay, north to the Space Needle, and east to Lake Union from a single room. These projections further the principle of erosion we pursued on the podium, where expansive glazing on the corner sky lounges allows people to“ look through” the building from the street.
We wanted to maximize texture and amplify the spatial recession of the tower’ s facade. Even within a highly transparent envelope, we prioritized rustication within all opaque components, including mullions, spandrels, and frames of operable panels. We also developed grids that hover in front of glazed panels, enhancing the perception of depth through shadow and reflection. We concentrated more of these components lower in the tower, decreasing the texture on higher floors and enhancing the perception of vertical gradation.
At our Blanchard Street elevation, we utilized a further setback, stepping down to acknowledge the scale of the single-story Otis building to our south. This created an internal courtyard that serves as a protected playground for resident children. The sixth-floor terrace features an external bridge spanning this void— conspicuous circulation that provides a legible sense of scale and movement to the podium’ s upper reaches.
Drawing inspiration from our neighbors, we designed the podium facade with these principles in mind. The double-height ground floor, setback behind the colonnade of brick and cast stone, is fronted by a glass storefront featuring an integral pony wall, operable sash windows, and a stone-clad entry vestibule. The soffit above is treated as a“ fifth facade” and clad in metal panels with an aged brass finish. Street furniture and generous plantings invite residents and passersby to inhabit the augmented external space.
In the public spaces, we softened the structural expressionism with a palette of warm, inviting, and resilient materials: stone floors plied with generous rugs; walls finished with masonry, lime plaster, and timber tambour panels; and windows dressed in lush curtains. We furnished the spaces with sofas, banquettes, and overstuffed chairs to encourage lingering.
In the residential units, we used a palette of soft neutrals and designed built-in furniture. A marbletopped, timber-framed table / island hybrid sits perpendicular to the expansive kitchens. A large sideboard with integrated bookshelves is built into the space between the units’ expansive windows, the dimensions of which are equal to the muntins of the
The rest of the base is clad in sage-hued, glazed Roman brick with precast string courses. We designed a simple debossed arch at each window header. On the southwest corner, we created a winter garden where the Fourth Avenue cladding turns the corner onto the lot-line Blanchard facade, otherwise finished in nonglazed stock brick.
For the tower portion, we wanted the building to feel more diaphanous as it rises. Skanska’ s trust in us to design both architecture and interiors afforded us the opportunity to make decisions that would benefit both.
The most tectonic formal move was the creation of projected volumes, or“ sky lounges,” in some units. In an otherwise rigorous facade, we explored syncopation— the curated interruption of organized elements of mass
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