Projects from Top Designers

Achieving a fine balance on SR 202

In November 2005, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) initiated construction of a highway-widening project for a three-mile-long section of State Route 202, from SR 520 to Sahalee Way NE, in rural King County, Wash. Currently a two-lane highway, WSDOT is expanding SR 202 to four and five lanes in order to improve corridor safety, ease traffic congestion, and serve anticipated growth in adjacent communities.

This section of SR 202 crosses Evans Creek and its associated floodplain wetlands.  The widening project will make impacts on the creek and wetlands, which provide regionally significant habitat for salmon and other fish and wildlife. Before the widening project could begin construction, WSDOT avoided and minimized these impacts where practicable, but some impacts were unavoidable.  Therefore, WSDOT needed to implement compensatory mitigation to comply with environmental regulations.

David Evans and Associates, Inc. (DEA), provided planning, design, and construction assistance services for the wetland and stream mitigation project associated with the SR 202 highway widening. The project presented a number of significant challenges for the project team and also provided opportunities to use innovative strategies to meet those challenges.

Callison Westlake and Terry

Callison announces the completion of the Westlake/Terry Building, one of Seattle’s first commercial projects expected to receive LEED-Gold certification. Developed by Vulcan Real Estate, the 317,000-sq-ft project comprised of two buildings on a full-block will serve as new office space for Microsoft and new corporate headquarters for Group Health. The building also includes an array of retail and restaurant offerings.

 Westlake/Terry combines eco-friendly materials with amenities such as showers, bicycle storage and a nearby transit stop to encourage emission-free commutes. The building is designed to achieve additional energy savings by implementing an energy model that combines the resources of Seattle City Light and Puget Sound Energy to provide cost incentives for the building owners and tenants.

Key sustainable features include:

Unparalleled proximity to public transportation – bordered along three sides by the upcoming Seattle Streetcar line Shower facilities and bike storage rooms to encourage alternative transit Recycled building materials such as insulation, gypsum, concrete and steel.

• More natural daylight than traditional office buildings
• Non-ozone-depleting HVAC system to protect local eco-system
• Water system designed to reduce potable water use by up to 25 %
• Native, drought-resistant landscaping
• Reflective roofing material to decrease “urban heat” output
• High performance building envelope and building systems expected to reduce energy costs by at least 30 percent
• Use of local building reduced energy consumption and pollution associated with transportation.

Harmony Road Area Transportation Improvement Project – EIS

Clackamas County selected Otak to provide an environmental impact statement of Harmony Road and Sunnybrook Boulevard. The project will determine the most effective solution for the Harmony/Linwood Intersec-tion, the Harmony and 82nd Avenue Intersec-tion, and the Sunnybrook Extension. Issues include traffic congestion, potential conflicts with adjacent neighborhoods, railroad crossing conflicts, and impacts to Mt. Scott Creek. Improvements to Sunnybrook Boulevard and Harmony Road will include new multi-lane sections or roadway, new bicycle lanes, improved transit access, left-turn lanes, sidewalks, storm drainage, and landscaping. The project involves an extensive public outreach program and effective agency involvement.

Challenges faced during construction of the project included a short window for installation of roof elements including boulder placement, screen and deck installation, and collaboration with interior finishes. The boulder outcrop was particularly challenging from a weight and handling perspective. Extensive planning to select and mockup the boulder composition off-site resulted in a swift re-assembly on the deck with limited impact on overall building construction schedules, crane time, or other adjacent trade work.

Project Statement

The 17th-floor Washington Mutual Bank roof garden is a green roof that is also the vital social space and civic heart of the bank’s downtown campus. Rather than meet the City of Seattle’s minimum open space requirements, the garden’s usable area was enlarged threefold to provide decks and pathways that showcase views across Elliott Bay while integrating elements that tell a story about the bank, its local origins, and the community it serves.

The landscape architect was commissioned to develop designs for the 17th-floor roof garden at the new Washington Mutual Bank Tower. The design philosophy addressed four major principles:

Birtcher Center

Group McKenzie, Portland, designed three industrial and  distribution buildings under construction at Birtcher Center at Townsend Way  near Portland, which become Oregon’s first speculative, industrial, LEED  certified buildings

Birtcher Center at Townsend  Way is a $37 million, 400,000-sq-ft development that includes three concrete tilt-up industrial buildings.

Birtcher is a pursuing a LEED Silver  certification for all three of its buildings at Townsend Way.  

Fujian Provincial Electric and Power Company Headquarters
Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, China MulvannyG2 Architecture

This official headquarters building of Fujian Provincial Electric and Power Company is located in the city of Fuzhou. The office tower has 32 stories above ground and two stories below.  A two-story high Electricity Dispatch Center is located on the 29th and 30th floors.  The design maximizes the high-tech and contemporary identity of the power company, while creating a highly efficient and contemporary office environment and providing a landmark for the city of Fuzhou.

The building is set away from the main street, allowing a green, open space at the entrance. This openness extends through the lobby and connects to a quiet courtyard on the other side of the building. With its roof gardens and sky lounges, the project is a vertical oasis in an urban setting. 

Unique to the building’s design is a stylized bolt of lightning discharging from the building in the form of a 226-foot-high communications tower.  The material of choice is stainless-steel metallic fabric. North and south curtain walls shield a crystal-like tower.  By using ceramic frit, the lightning motif is integrated into the building’s glass panels, appearing as hundreds of transparent triangles.  The tips of the curtain shields are made of translucent white glass, which glows at night. 

The building’s south-north orientation, multi-level sky garden spaces, cost-effective revolving natural ventilation system, and energy-efficient low-E silkscreen glass are some key sustainable design features.

Multi-level lounge areas are provided for employees every two to three floors. Transparent and translucent materials such as combinations of clear glass and metal screenings are used in the lobby, which features a sky lounge.  A large water wall further magnifies the feeling of transparency and an open flow with nature. 

This article was originally published in the August 2007 issue Architectural Record as a Building Type Study on Tall Buildings