21 Boston – 36 – Going Green

This aerial view of the Gables Queen Anne project (looking northwest) reveals how green the neighborhood has become in the last century – and at the same time introduces some of the ways in which the project itself has included green elements in the design. These occur in three areas: the surround at street level, the many terraces and balconies, and, in a subtle way, in the central courtyard. There is also a sense that the building, when seen from a variety of directions (here from 2nd Avenue West), also benefits from the neighborhood.

A walk around the base of the project shows a use of sturdy plant materials being installed.

Here, along 1st Avenue North, looking south, sturdy shrubs, grasses and trees set the tone.

The rhythm of the plant materials reflects that of the porches that front the townhouse apartments, complementing the sturdy punched openings, canopies, and metal railings that lead to the units.

Grace notes have been included, in the form of flowering plants and clumps of grass.

Much the same treatment continues on to Crockett Street, though without the entrances.

The width of space dedicated to plant materials makes the walk along Crocket gracious and more in character with the nearby residential front yards.

Returning to 1st Avenue north, plant materials help to complete a composition around a seating area, and significantly, at the base of a stair that leads to the main residential plaza.

At the top of the stairs the walkway leads under the skybridges that connect two major wings of the building.

From this point, a covered walkway, framed by raised planters connects to the center of the project.

At that point the walk turns 90 degrees and reveals the center courtyard and the vista through the project along a north-south line that used to be an alley. It also shows one of the significant treatments for the landscaping. The whole area sits on the major concrete platform that, in effect, forms the roof for the Safeway store below; so raised steel planters were introduced to be able to contain enough soil for the trees and shrubs. This approach also provides definition and some privacy for the apartment patios that line the space.

The center of the complex forms a large open plaza.

The raised planters line the edge; but the center includes an artificial grass treatment that can handle casual use that would be detrimental to grass lawn. The walkway continues all the way to Crockett street. Turning around, we got the view to the north.

The large structure on the right-hand side, when fully fitted out, will provide a grilling area for outdoor dining.

Back at the beginning, this looks towards 1st Avenue, where the open skybridges let in lots of light and views of the neighborhood to the east.

From there we took an elevator up to roof level for an overview of the whole court.

It’s a sizable, car-free, green, outdoor space – not what you would expect to find. And then, there are a few other surprises on the upper level as well. This is another view through the skybridges with a glimpse of the neighborhood and Cascades beyond.

Another composite view, this time looking south, shows a large gathering space with a picnic and cook-out space off to the left.

At a more intimate scale, the units at this level also include balconies with planters and outdoor grilles –

And, did I mention the view – here to the northwest, Puget Sound, the Olympics, and green.

One final comment about green, as illustrated by another Gables aerial photo –

The green, landscaped spaces occur at all the levels, and in addition, the very top roof levels also contain heat pumps that serve each of the units in the building. It’s a different kind of green contribution perhaps, but it’s one that will help us keep Puget Sound green too.

21 Boston – 35 – Final Details

This recent drone photo by Gables, the owner, clearly shows that the building is nearing completion, from top to bottom. Some of the work, such as the new Safeway store fit-up, is still not visible but will be soon (November 9); but many of the final exterior details have arrived. They add an interesting quality to the building, especially at street level.

This now-familiar view shows off some of the street-level retail focus elements, such as awnings and signage. These have been specifically designed to complement existing Queen Anne Avenue elements such as brick facades and colorful awnings, such as these at the Hilltop Ale House.

In this case, however, these are not your grandparents’ sunporch canvas awnings.

They’re pre-painted metal panels, pre-cut and formed to their final shape, lifted into position and screwed to their supporting frames.

And, as with existing treatments already along the street, they vary. The red one above shelters the entrance to the Safeway pharmacy; and the striped one below covers the outdoor display area for the Safeway florist. The florist shop also includes those white ceramic pots for outdoor floral displays.

The Safeway itself gets a new, large entrance sign. As opposed to being painted directly on the brick (as my grandfather often did in his sign business), this sign arrived in pieces like the awnings and gets lifted into place.

Once in place it leaves no doubt as to the location of the “front door” to the store.

In the window nearby a small notice makes it official.

At the intersection of Queen Anne Avenue and Crockett Streets the new corner plaza has also added a few “announcements”.

The most prominent is a seating / sculpture feature right on the corner. The sculpture itself will arrive soon, consisting of 3 metal trees with a bead-blasted steel armature system, connecting glass pieces to a series of branches and stems. Each armature performs as ‘branches’, ending in lighted, hand-blown glass pendants. In the background on the right (behind the temporary “We’re Hiring” sign), is the outdoor order window for the deli – where a new sign identifying it as the “Delicatessen” will soon be installed.

Should you just want to order a sandwich and sit in the plaza, there’s a bench and mini-lawn, as well as stools for the eating counter, tables, chairs, and umbrellas, all coming early in November.

Off to one side is another plaza entrance to the Safeway store, with ornamental metal screens designed by local artist, Stuart Nakamura.

These panels have at their core an approach that highlights some of the features for which Queen Anne is noted and speak to the community’s identity that sets it apart from others in Seattle. The imagery utilizes a playing-card format, in reference to the ‘Queen’ in Queen Anne, as a visual format to explore some of these neighborhood features. An inspirational motif was borrowed from traditional Japanese Hanafuda playing cards which utilize strong diagonal arcs and a graphic approach to highlight the dynamic quality this space will offer. The panels will combine references to the Queen Anne architectural style, to the Suquamish historical presence in the area, and to food-related images. Some of the screens face Queen Anne Avenue and include a “leaning rail” for bus riders to use while waiting.

As a side note, all the windows are getting washed for the grand opening as well.

Around the corner, part way up the hill on Crocket Street, a secondary entrance to the central courtyard has been included.

It steps up, over the garage entrance and leads to a main walkway through the courtyard. (More about all of that in the next blog post). Where the stair brings you down to the sidewalk a small welcoming plaza frames the walk with seating.

In a very generous way it is both part of the project and part of the community.

The small, white dots are actually lights to add some after-dark grace notes. A similar treatment has been given to a long bench on First Avenue North.

A mural, designed by local artist Xin Xin, will be installed nest week to provide visual interest on the concrete wall that conceals the Safeway loading area beyond. It is based on a watercolor painting of hers exploring healing emotions through abstract forms.

These ‘grace-notes’ welcome the community to be part of the project. Finally, around the corner on Boston Street, two more pieces of art complete the picture.

Some privacy screening for the mail room part of the administrative offices has been designed with the same “cut out” figure-ground approach noted in the description of the Queen Anne / Crockett Street plaza. Here, highlights include iconic views and elements on Queen Anne, the view of the Space Needle, a reference to the dozens of stair climbs, the North Queen Anne Drive Bridge, and to the usage of a counterbalance to enable street cars to go up and down steep Queen Anne Avenue.

Finally, swinging around the corner, to the corner of Queen Anne Avenue and Boston Street, brings the large mural at the north end building A into view.

It conveys the idea that buildings can provide a canvas for art in a striking way. Local artist Marsha Rollinger, chose to design geometric shapes based on architectural details of buildings and structures in the neighborhood. The details include diamond patterns, turret shapes, crenelations, wall arches from stairs, decorative leaded-window designs, and laurel plant leaves found West Queen Anne lampposts.

The mural shows clearly from Boston street, in context with local retail.

21 Boston – 30 – Revealing

As more and more of the perimeter scaffolding comes down, more and different portions of the building’s facades have been revealed. What’s not always clear is what the ‘look’ of the various facades tells us about the building. I thought it might be interesting to look at some. Shortly after the photo above, the scaffolding in front of the future deli / plaza was removed.

As is quite obvious, the facade of the Deli is made of red brick. In fact, one of the messages of the facade is that when you see red brick, it will indicate that retail is located there, basically for the Safeway and its components. Here’s the Deli elevation:

It will have view windows on either side with a service window in the center where you can order and receive food for take-out or for eating in the plaza. The brickwork also tells another story when the shadows reveal the pattern.

Some of the bricks have been set slightly out from the face of the wall so that they are accentuated by the sun-shadows. This tells a story (the Deli is a special place) by borrowing the look of an older construction technique. In original brick construction the walls were built two or three bricks thick because one brick was not strong enough. To make the wall work structurally the thicknesses had to be tied together. This was done by turning a brick sideways every so often so that it created a bridge between the outer and inner layers. Typically these were called header bricks. Over the years, masons in different areas spaced the headers in interesting patterns, the one above being similar to Flemish Bond with three stretchers (the bricks between each pair of headers). What’s actually going on in this modern version is that there is a concrete structure behind one layer of brick with an airspace and sheet flashing between them. Metal lintel angles at the bottom and ties occasionally behind, work to support the brick and hold it in place.

Old meets new – nice touch.

Around the corner, on Crockett Street, the brick facade continues – to reference the Safeway, and it’s also used to frame the automobile entrance to the store garage. No special brick patterns here, though. Above the brick are the multiple levels of housing where several visual devices are in play. As you may remember from the construction process, the housing is built up of layers (floors) of prefabricated wooden wall elements, brought in by truck, lifted by the tower crane, and anchored in place, a floor at a time. The design dilemma is that if all that wood were left as is, it would be hard to distinguish the various parts of the three buildings and the overall effect would also be massive. So the design developed several ‘languages’ to give different parts of the buildings different looks. This also helps to give some scale to the building forms. In the picture above left, you’re looking at the south end of Building C which is essentially black with white “frames” overlaid for scale. But across the ‘alley gap’ to the right the treatment differs.

Here, Building B is mostly white with black floor-level spandrels; but it’s fronted by one-story “townhouse apartments” which are enclosed by black brick. You can see the units more clearly around the corner on First Avenue (below).

The distinction in these units is that they each have their own ‘stoop’ entrance directly out through landscaping to First Avenue. I lived in a row house in Philadelphia. It will be interesting to see how these compare.

The treatment shown in the two pictures above continues down First Avenue where there’s a gap with skybridge hallways connecting it to Building A. At that point a totally different corrugated facade material has been introduced on the extension of Building A.

I like the corrugation but it does introduce a lot of black. Building A is still partly scaffolded but the overall impression is clear.

Building A is distinguished by its top and bottom. The top floor has some social gathering space and the bottom contains the Leasing and Management offices, visitor reception, tenant mail boxes, etc. Its west side is just coming into view below.

Ducking into the future service drive, you can see the juncture of corners of the three buildings and the different “languages” of their facades: A / B / C.

Stepping back a bit at Queen Anne Avenue and Boston Street gives the big picture.

And just in the time we’ve taken to walk around the project more of the red brick has been revealed at the retail level. When the scaffolding along the Queen Anne Avenue sidewalk comes down, the entire retail level will be recognizable.

One final note about the language of the facade: the Queen Anne Avenue side.

Here the “Big Frames” approach has been used to visually articulate the facade and help to moderate its bulk. These frames plus the extended balconies and stepped-back upper floors all work to help a very big building fit into its urban village neighborhood.