King County Civic Ground

Seattle, King County, WA

Public facilities, Public space, Infrastructure

Spread over eight acres of land, with a total of 2.3 million existing square feet of space in buildings that range in age from 17 years old to 112 years old, most of King County civic campus facilities in downtown Seattle have become functionally obsolete, or are facing rapidly escalating, costly maintenance and repairs that may be financially unsustainable.

Northwest Studio is leading the planning initiative to provide the public and King County leaders with viable strategies for campus investments, including county facilities and public spaces.

Key to this effort is a focus on planning new environments that are designed for equity and fairness, that build respectful civic experiences, that create resilient working places, create beautifully restorative environments, and deliver financially sound projects.

King County owns and operates several facilities in downtown Seattle, most of which are on a civic campus centered on Fourth Avenue between James Street and Yesler Way. These include the King County Courthouse, King County Administration Building, King County Correctional Facility, Chinook Building, and Yesler Building. The county also owns King Street Center, located in Pioneer Square.

Over the decades, King County has made investments in these buildings to keep providing services to residents. However, many of them are underutilized, functionally obsolete, or are facing costly maintenance and repairs that may be financially unsustainable. Not only are some of these buildings at the end of their useful life, the area around the campus is often perceived as being unsafe.

New approaches to delivering health and human services, law enforcement, and criminal justice are also driving change at King County, and the COVID-19 pandemic has moved governments at all levels to rethink how they deliver services to the public. The Civic Campus Initiative looks ahead to identify opportunities to deploy county services, leverage the value of county real estate assets, improve personal safety and security, and better engage and complement surrounding neighborhoods.

The current civic campus is spread over eight acres of land. There are eight buildings and ten sites, with a total of 2.3 million square feet of space in existing buildings.

King County Executive Dow Constantine and the King County Council retained Northwest Studio, a practice of architects and urban designers based in Seattle, to lead the study. The plan will provide the public and county leaders with viable strategies for campus investments, including County facilities and public spaces.

Location
Seattle, King County, Washington

Client
King County︎︎︎

Status
Phase I: 2018-2019
Phase II: 2020-Ongoing

Program
Offices, Council facilities, Civil and Criminal Legal System Facilities, Mobility infrastructure, Public open space

Size:
2,750,000 - 4,300,000gsf; 8.3ac (10 urban blocks)

Collaborators
Facility Programmer: Clark Barnes︎︎︎
Economics & Finance: ECONorthwest︎︎︎
Public Affairs: Cocker Fennessey︎︎︎
Community Engagement: Stepherson Associates︎︎︎
Real Estate Analysis: Kinzer Partners︎︎︎
Environmental Design: Atelier Ten︎︎︎
Mobility: Nelson Nygaard︎︎︎
Landscape Architecture: Communita Atelier︎︎︎
Cost Estimation: DCW Cost Management︎︎︎

Justice Systems Consultant: CGL︎︎︎
Visualization: Luxigon︎︎︎
Aerial Photography: Skypix︎︎︎

Reimagine Wenatchee Master Plan

Wenatchee, WA

Transit Facilities, Neighborhood Amenities, Public Space, Infrastructure

The Reimagine Wenatchee Master Plan studies considers a variety of catalytic opportunities within the waterfront, downtown and warehouse districts to reveal and leverage the threads that can tie several distinct but interrelated Cornerstone projects, regulatory frameworks, and communities together into a cohesive plan.  The masterplan will be used to identify improvement opportunity areas, outline a prioritization list for these improvements, and ensure consistency with community visioning efforts aimed at increasing opportunities for business and economic expansion activity, safety, aesthetics, infrastructure allocation and utilization, and continued economic revival.

Reports

Location
Wenatchee, Washington

Client
City of Wenatchee︎︎︎

Status
Masterplan: 2023-Ongoing

Program
Community Visioning & Goals, Strategic Framework, Transportation Improvement Alternatives, Conceptual Streetscape Designs, Land Use Recommendations

Size:
34ac

Collaborators
Economic Analysis: ECONorthwest︎︎︎
Mobility: Nelson Nygaard︎︎︎
Civil Engineering: Perteet︎︎︎

Spring District Hub

Spring District, Bellevue, WA

Transit Facilities, Neighborhood Amenities, Public Space, Core & Shell, Commercial

The Spring District, in Bellevue, Washington, used to be a 36-acre warehouse and distribution center. Grey metal warehouses with blocks-and-blocks of covered loading docks and wide unmarked asphalt service roads.  It was utilitarian and sensible.  It was a distinctly American vernacular.

Today, warehouses are giving way to apartments, offices, and technology labs, and the expansive service roads are becoming a variegated network of new streets and public spaces.  Within this enormous urban landscape we were asked to create a tiny workhorse of a building for vital programs. Commuter bicycle facilities, transit operator facilities, commercial and retail spaces, restaurant spaces, and a public open space needed to fit into two-stories on one small and eccentrically shaped site located at the most visible threshold to the district.

We brought these very different programs together into a design that draws from the warehouse district’s history of unapologetically rational forms and simple, durable, materials to bridge the vernacular of a past era with the emerging identity of a new and growing neighborhood.

The Spring District Hub is a commuter transit facility, with parking for over 450 bikes, a bike repair shop, and end-of-trip locker and showers.  It is a transit employee amenity and service node, with a place for rest and relief, parking for employee bicycles, and facilities for station maintenance and upkeep.  And it is a core and shell designed for the small grab-and-go grocer, sidewalk cafes, and rooftop restaurants or bars. The brief required squeezing 16,000 gsf of grade-related programs for diverse user groups and 8,600 gsf of landscapes onto an 11,000 gsf site.  The project responded by creating a second ground plane, interwoven with public programs, connecting the new light rail station to the west with critical bus transfers to the east. That single move makes bicycles and transit easier to use, and that can have a big environmental impact. The project brings over three square miles of the Bel-Red corridor within easy reach, without the need for a car.  And since each commuter that shifts from car to bike nets a reduction of 1.1 metric tons of CO2e per year, the project enables the removal of 495 metric tons of CO2e annually from the Bel-Red corridor, serving the region beyond its district. 

From the adjacent light rail station and from the adjoining bus stop, the Spring District Hub is an identifiable figure in the urban landscape, working to use a very small site to shape wayfinding for transit and an identity for a very large neighborhood. The design leveraged fundamental elements from the district’s history, from weathering cover to durable materials, and reprogrammed those elements with the contemporary requirement of the project’s brief to enable public life more times of the day, more days of the week, and more seasons of the year.  It is a framework that is designed to accept change as the Spring District continues to grow.

In September of 2021, Bellevue’s Spring District neighborhood became the second Puget Sound area project to achieve the USGBC’s LEED ND certification. The Spring District Hub was an integral component in meeting the District’s requirements.

Location
The Spring District︎︎︎, Bellevue, Washington

Client
Wright Runstad︎︎︎/ WR-SRI 120th North

Status
Design: 2018-2020
Construction: 2020-2021

Program
Transit Facilities, Commuter Facilites, Bicycle Parking (450 units), Neighborhood Amenities, Retail/ Commercial/ Foodservice, Public Space

Size:
16,000gsf; 0.25ac

Collaborators
Landscape Architect: Fazio Associates︎︎︎
Structural Engineer: KPFF︎︎︎
Civil Engineering: JMJ Team︎︎︎
Mobility: Nelson Nygaard︎︎︎
Geotechnical: Hart Crowser︎︎︎
Lighting: PLS︎︎︎
Graphics: Olive Design Studio︎︎︎
Visualization: Studio 216︎︎︎
General Contractor: Foushee︎︎︎

Eastsound House

Orcas Island, WA

Single-family Residential

Location
Orcas Island, Washington

Client
Private

Status
Design: 2022-2023

Program
Single-family Residential

Size:
3,000gsf; 1.55ac

Collaborators
Landscape Architect: Pacific Landscape︎︎︎
Structural Engineer: Quantum Consulting Engineers︎︎︎
Surveyor: Holman Land Surveying︎︎︎
Environmental: NW Ecological Services︎︎︎
Civil Engineering: Pacific Engineering︎︎︎