The Eight towers above a lone redwood. Photo © David Sundberg / Esto, click to enlarge.

Located on one of the city’s main thoroughfares, the project stands out from the surrounding office buildings, which have sprung up rapidly over the past two decades as Bellevue’s downtown has evolved into a tech hub. While most developments in the area are some form of a rectangular box, the Eight is a head-turner due to its unique oblong shape, visible structural elements, and ample communal space apparent across a large landscaped plaza.

“Skanska was very forward-looking when [we] started to propose the many outdoor spaces, and [they] embraced the street and being connected with downtown,” Markese says. In addition to being the client, Skanska was the general contractor for the project—a unique position that, according to Markese, resulted in the company’s openness to creative and out-of-the-box solutions. “Not many owners we work with are willing to take on so much exterior space,” he says.

Before demolition, the property was a forgettable blip one would drive by on the way to or from Interstate 405; it held a nondescript set of strip malls at either end of a large parking lot. “If you wanted to be in your car and pull in to grab something, it would work well,” Markese says, “but as a main location within the city, it was a little bit of a missing tooth.”

To better knit the building into the urban fabric, Pickard Chilton pushed it to the northwest side of the lot, which maximizes open street-level space. The architects also replaced the formerly steep, narrow sidewalks with wide pathways lined in native plantings. Drawing from a Pacific Northwest sensibility that embraces nature, innovation, and sustainability, the design team chose a minimal but striking palette of steel, timber, and glazing.

“It started with this idea of the tree and the larger forest, and that melded with the idea of Bellevue and its beginnings as a Midcentury Modern city,” Markese explains of the materiality. The steel facade looks black at first glance, but the paint is a dark green that seems to gain depth as the sun moves across the building throughout the day. Above the ground level, ash soffits in a warm reddish yellow cushion the stark industrial look and nod to the region’s forestry industry. Inside, walnut, brass, and Italian marble mix with oceanic shades of blue. “Color is a thread through the building,” notes Markese, admitting that the firm experimented with eight or nine options before settling on the turquoise-tinted winner.

At the street level, local retail, a public lobby and lounge nicknamed the Living Room open directly onto the plaza, providing further connection to the city. In the Living Room, clusters of seating offer relaxed work and gathering spaces with a domestic feel. An undulating stairwell from the lobby leads to an upper mezzanine featuring the Treehouse, a small, open conference room that seems to float over the public space below.

A separate 1,900-square-foot mass-timber pavilion (slated to be a restaurant) sits at the east end of the naturally inclined site; its residential scale and pedestrian-sheltering overhang are welcoming gestures meant to draw passersby into the plaza, where seating areas and landscaping by Hargreaves Jones provide moments of respite.

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Featuring a mass-timber pavilion (1) and easy access to public interior spaces (2), the inclined site (3) emphasizes pedestrian connectivity. Photos © David Sundberg / Esto (1 & 3), Erik Stackpole Undehn (2)

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Given the region’s proximity to several active fault zones, earthquake-resistance measures are part of Washington State’s building codes. The Eight’s office tower is built around a side core with open, column-free floor plates. Diagonal steel elements wrap the building in a graceful sweep—the varying widths are a testament to the load-bearing capacity of each brace—and pin connections, visible both inside and out, allow the building to be flexible in the case of a seismic event.

“The core and the diagonal braces work together in concert to provide the lateral bracing for the tower,” says Adrienne Nelson, a principal at Pickard Chilton. “As we were talking through that option, it just looked like such an elegant solution to celebrate how the forces are being dealt with in a tectonic and architectural way.”

The structural expression also allowed the team to streamline materials. “We didn’t have to put on a lot of jewelry, so to speak, that other buildings do,” Nelson continues. She notes that this factor, combined with decreased energy and water usage, proximity to transit, expanded tenant access to fresh air and daylight, and a 130 percent increase in the post-development site’s vegetated area, helped the building achieve LEED Platinum certification. The installation of dynamic glazing on the 25th floor, which darkens in response to sunlight levels, also helps to reduce the tower’s energy load.

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Informal places to congregate extend from a 25th-floor terrace (4), which showcases sweeping views of Lake Washington and Mt. Rainer (5), down to the street-level Living Room (6). Photos © Erik Stackpole Undehn (4), David Sundberg / Esto (5 & 6)

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These innovative measures are part of what made the Eight so attractive to its marquee tenant, the Pokémon Company International, which signed a long-term lease for 16 of the building’s floors, including the top level, where a large west-facing deck provides sweeping views across Lake Washington to Seattle. But it’s not just the upper-floor occupants who get the enhanced outdoor experience. There is a generous second-floor amenity room that gives companies the flexibility to hold events and trainings. This space’s 10,200-square-foot deck, which sits atop the plaza-level retail space, is accessible to anyone working in the building. It’s just one in a series of design moves—from the tower positioning to expansive interior public space—meant to create a connective flow between tenants, pedestrians, and downtown-Bellevue dwellers.

“When we started this process, the whole conversation was about how we invite people in,” Nelson says. “The ethos behind this building was making it a good steward of the city and a destination for the community.”

Click plans to enlarge

Click graphic to enlarge