As set in its context, the Junction 270 project makes a deliberate effort to weave together all of the disparate strands of a complex site. Wedged on to a narrow site, bracketed by ordinary apartment buildings, along a busy highway, and directly across the road from the main entrance to Washington State University, the design does not shy away from its situation but instead celebrates it.
To better understand the layout I’ve focused in on and realigned it to fit this blog format. The first view shows the roof tops which outline the basic elements of the design. The V-shaped entry plaza stands out clearly as do a couple of towers bracketing the hillclimb that runs centrally through the scheme. Also obvious in this view are two major landscape initiatives: a display garden of Northwest plant materials on the campus side (upper left) and the large willow green space / wetland (lower right)
Below, I’ve spliced together the various plan elements at street level, so they can be seen more appropriately in relation to each other. As is obvious at the top of the drawing, the revised main WSU Gateway has grown substantially in size, as has state route 270 (Main Street) that passes between that entrance and the Junction 270 project. Also seen at the top is a strong diagonal, crossing the intersection. This is a pedestrian bridge that carries people from the native plant bluff in the upper left hand corner to an upper level of the project, and then by sloping ramp through the Willow green space to a view point and then back to grade at the main Entry Plaza. At-grade crossings are also provided at street level; but the team felt that the widened highway would provide enough of a safety challenge that a bridge also made sense.
The strong roof forms are not so obvious at the plaza level; though we felt that when you stood in the space, the upper levels of the buildings would be clearly defined. This plan (above) reflects the idea of tucking the retail spaces that line the plaza back under the buildings to create gallerias for protected pedestrian circulation. Each of the three major parts of the complex is worth a closer look.
In this larger plan view, several elements become apparent. The scale and articulation differences between the retail and housing buildings show an awareness of how these functions often work. I had the students model the retail elements on ones they were familiar with in Pullman and on campus. Some of them became personalized, such as Mama Angie’s Pasta; and many featured food and drink. Mixed into the retail areas are a series of 3×3 grid blocks. These represent stair access points to the apartments above the retail, emphasizing the close relationship between the two, something not often found in student housing situations.
The darker brown path through the buildings represents an ADA slope that enables easy walking (and biking) from the top to the bottom of the hill, a true challenge on such a steeply sloping site. Here’s how that looked in section.
For the housing units, I had the students draw scale plans of the housing they were currently living in, present them to each other, talk about the pros and cons, and develop standards they felt would provide good accommodations. As can be seen in both the plans and sections, the students felt strongly that having a variety of open spaces adjacent to apartments and retail functions made for a much more congenial living experience.
As the design developed and the Entry Plaza form became a more dominant element in the center of the project, it became clear that some form of direct connection from it to Latah Street, the river, parks and community would benefit people moving up the hill from downtown to the campus. We introduced a retail hillclimb, similar to the one we had researched at the Pike Market in Seattle to define the space. Food was a major theme.
A section view shows how this element worked, with circulation from the plaza framed by housing above the circulation arcades (right), between the towers (acting as beacons for the project when seen from a distance), and then between the smaller housing rows near the bottom of the project.
Finally, at the southern end of the complex, we had to figure out a way to both preserve and take advantage of the existing Willow green wetland bowl.
This occurred at several levels. Environmentally, we daylighted a portion of the stream where it emerged from the hill below the highway (top) and let it flow through the bowl to a new wetland (from which it go again by pipe to the Palouse river). The ADA path winds around the perimeter of the bowl, sloping up from Latah Street to meet up with the pedestrian street through the housing. And in a circulation tour de force, we launched a bridge from the one crossing the highway out through the trees to a viewpoint and then back to the main plaza.
The viewpoint was our way of connecting the design (at least visually) to the larger Palouse landscape beyond.
A few broader views help to pull all this together.
The view from the highway shows the three main elements: Willow bowl and overlook ramp on the left, main entry plaza and towers framing the hillclimb in the center, and housing over retail and walkway arcades on the right.
Conversely, the view from the valley below reveals the total height involved, the complexity in the mix of housing types and building forms, the formality of the towers marking the plaza and the environmental contrast of the Willow Wetland Bowl.
So how did all of this end up?
There had been a lot of curiosity about the mysterious project going on in the grad student studio, so we decided to show off the results.
At the end of the semester, we reconvened the group of faculty and citizens, and any students interested in the project, for a presentation. I had set up all the drawing formats to match the proportions of 35mm slides (the good old days); so that using a pair of projectors we could show all the drawings you see above.
Then, following Loretta Anawalt’s suggestion one more time, the eight students explained the design as if they were living there and those in the audience were visiting and wanted to know what this place was all about. It was a community success.
The Junction 270 team also got some publicity from the WSU Week campus magazine.
It would be nice to think, of course, that the ‘next team’ had picked up the project and moved from design to construction; but the reality is that the site is still there waiting . . .
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