Wagner Education Center

This new front door for the Center for Wooden Boats, a beloved Seattle institution that celebrates the region’s maritime legacy, allows it to serve a much broader audience while democratizing access to Lake Union. Much like the center itself, the new building draws on the Pacific Northwest’s history and was inspired by the wooden crafts on view within.

Established in 1976 as a living museum in which visitors could learn more about boats and sailing through hands-on experience, the center quickly found that its mission and programs resonated with the Seattle community. Its programs, which include boat building, restoration, and free sailing opportunities for the public, continued to expand over the years. By 2012, it was clear that it had vastly outgrown its floating boat shop and rental center.

For this project, the team selected a small but prominent site at the entrance to Lake Union Park for the new land-based facility. The site previously contained a sawmill, so extensive remediation was required, and its limited footprint is framed by existing park pathways. Responding to these strict parameters, the new building leverages cantilevered walkways to shape more usable interior and exterior space. The strategy also creates engaging sightlines to the lake and the center’s other facilities—a floating dock, model boat pond, and carving pavilion—while also orienting visitors to the surrounding context.

In its design, the new building serves as an armature for the center’s activities, and its transparency, materiality, and preserved maritime artifacts clearly communicate its mission to the public. It houses a multifunction “sail loft” that serves as a classroom for young people during the day and an event space at night. New galleries and exhibition spaces provide additional opportunities for engagement, while a boat shop facilitates the restoration of the largest boats in the center’s collection.

Taking advantage of Seattle’s mild summers, the building was designed for passive cooling and has no air conditioning. Its occupants interact with it much like they would a boat, turning to hand-operable large doors, windows, and skylights to ventilate the building. The team’s approach mirrors a central tenet of sailing, optimizing performance by adjusting in response to natural forces.

Every year, the center offers vital programming that engages thousands of young people who participate in field trips and camps, and in 2019 it allocated almost $10,000 to ensure disadvantaged young people can participate for free or at a reduced rate. The new building, which the center’s 1,200 volunteers helped build, has allowed for new skill-building and apprenticeship programs. Its beloved Wooden Boat Festival, a free community event, has grown, too, attracting more than 6,200 participants in 2019.

June 3, 2024

Thurston Hall Renovation

For over 70 years, Thurston Hall at The George Washington University has provided students with formative experiences as they embark on life away from home for the first time. This renovation of the hall, a beloved campus asset on the university’s Washington, D.C., campus, utilized its solid bones and addressed significant habitation issues. The renovation also occurred during a period in which such work outpaced new construction in architectural billings. As such, this project is a leading example of shifting trends that demonstrate the benefits of revitalizing the nation’s existing building stock.

Considering the hall’s location in a historic district and its long and colorful history as a residence for first-year students, adapting Thurston Hall to welcome new generations of students was important to both alumni and the surrounding community. Its original layout featured a donut-style footprint at the center of which stood an unused and overgrown light well. The design team took advantage of this significant opportunity to carve away five stories of the hall’s south portion to create a dynamic courtyard that expands access to natural light. This bold move also densifies the number of residential units while increasing the number of public spaces to nurture an engaged community. The building’s exterior was largely untouched in accordance with historic preservation codes, but it now conceals an inward-facing and radically transformed interior.

In addition to the new courtyard, the excision of the southern portion of the hall created a series of stepped outdoor terraces that define a vertical park system. The resulting spaces are filled with native plantings wrapped by Corten steel that enhances immersion in the natural environment. Across the interior, public spaces were distributed around the courtyard to provide visual connections and a sense of orientation, a significant improvement from the building’s previously dense corridors.

Studies have shown that today’s undergraduates face high levels of mental health challenges, which are often exacerbated by the spaces in which they live and study. Each of the renovation’s design elements, from improved indoor air quality to material use, is focused on bolstering student well-being. The team’s thoughtful approach to programming combats social isolation and promotes spontaneous community-building. On the building’s north side, double-height student lounges include communal kitchen areas, while its basement houses a new dining hall that serves the entire campus community.

Through this project, a campus icon has been reborn and stands ready to welcome students over the next 100 years.

June 3, 2024

Student Success District

This project, on University of Arizona’s Tucson campus, unites the school’s essential yet previously siloed student support services. While comprehensive in nature, involving campus planning, exterior site improvements, and architectural interventions, the project is rooted in transformation and the connection of interior spaces that offer elevated experiences aimed at nurturing tomorrow’s leaders.

The university’s research has shown that those who participate in student support services have much higher retention and graduation rates compared to students who do not. Many of the university’s programs were quite successful, with 9,500 advising appointments, 2.3 million library visits, and 20,000 counseling and psychological services appointments in 2019 alone. Unfortunately, the majority of these services were situated in unwelcoming and far-flung spaces on campus, rendering them invisible to many students.

The project hinged on revitalizing three existing buildings and constructing one anew to centralize all services along the campus’ main mall. Constructed in the 1960s and 1970s, the university’s two libraries suffered from pancake floor plans and little to no access to daylight. Between them sits Bear Down Gymnasium, a landmark structure that was once the campus fitness hub but had been relegated to a cubicle farm supporting various student service programs. All three buildings were disconnected and hamstrung by band-aid solutions that shaped interior experiences that were isolated at best and inhumane at worst.

In renovating the existing spaces and adding the new four-story LEED Gold-certified Bartlett Academic Success Center, the team shaped an interconnected nine-acre Student Success District that actively engages the university’s students. The renovated gym is the district’s heart, and the team carefully retained elements of its suspended mezzanine bleachers and gym floor. It remains on the National Register of Historic Places and was preserved according to the Secretary of the Interior’s guidelines.

June 3, 2024

The World's Foremost

This new front door for the Center for Wooden Boats, a beloved Seattle institution that celebrates the region’s maritime legacy, allows it to serve a much broader audience while democratizing access to Lake Union. Much like the center itself, the new building draws on the Pacific Northwest’s history and was inspired by the wooden crafts on view within.

Established in 1976 as a living museum in which visitors could learn more about boats and sailing through hands-on experience, the center quickly found that its mission and programs resonated with the Seattle community. Its programs, which include boat building, restoration, and free sailing opportunities for the public, continued to expand over the years. By 2012, it was clear that it had vastly outgrown its floating boat shop and rental center.

For this project, the team selected a small but prominent site at the entrance to Lake Union Park for the new land-based facility. The site previously contained a sawmill, so extensive remediation was required, and its limited footprint is framed by existing park pathways. Responding to these strict parameters, the new building leverages cantilevered walkways to shape more usable interior and exterior space. The strategy also creates engaging sightlines to the lake and the center’s other facilities—a floating dock, model boat pond, and carving pavilion—while also orienting visitors to the surrounding context.

In its design, the new building serves as an armature for the center’s activities, and its transparency, materiality, and preserved maritime artifacts clearly communicate its mission to the public. It houses a multifunction “sail loft” that serves as a classroom for young people during the day and an event space at night. New galleries and exhibition spaces provide additional opportunities for engagement, while a boat shop facilitates the restoration of the largest boats in the center’s collection.

Taking advantage of Seattle’s mild summers, the building was designed for passive cooling and has no air conditioning. Its occupants interact with it much like they would a boat, turning to hand-operable large doors, windows, and skylights to ventilate the building. The team’s approach mirrors a central tenet of sailing, optimizing performance by adjusting in response to natural forces.

Every year, the center offers vital programming that engages thousands of young people who participate in field trips and camps, and in 2019 it allocated almost $10,000 to ensure disadvantaged young people can participate for free or at a reduced rate. The new building, which the center’s 1,200 volunteers helped build, has allowed for new skill-building and apprenticeship programs. Its beloved Wooden Boat Festival, a free community event, has grown, too, attracting more than 6,200 participants in 2019.

June 3, 2024