With more than $33 billion in its asset trust endowment, the Gates Foundation is the wealthiest charitable entity in the world. But it wanted to send the right message with the architecture of its new home: bold but not arrogant, global but also a good neighbor.
A two-story, 218,500-square-foot public high school with classrooms, a student activity center, a multipurpose forum for presentations and lectures, a library, TV and radio studios, a gymnasium, and offices.
A storefront from the early 1900s, which had served as a drugstore and soda fountain, is converted into a live/work space for a couple in the real-estate business.
When the owners, a couple with five children between them with one still living at home, purchased the overgrown, approximately 1.5-acre property, located in the tree-lined Seattle neighborhood of Washington Park with views of Mount Rainer, Lake Washington, and the Bellevue skyline, it contained a charming but modest traditional house and guest cottage in need of repair. The architects spent time pursuing the possibility of a remodel and addition, but the state of the house and site made this option unfeasible. The ensuing design stemmed from a combination of reverence for the original house and site and Domestic Architecture’s theoretical
Ano-nonsense brick structure built in 1910 to house Chinese laborers, the East Kong Yick Building lacked the kind of architectural features that provide excitement when an old building becomes a museum.
Project Specs Wing Luke Asian Museum Seattle, Washington Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen << Return to article the People Architect Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects 159 South Jackson Street, Suite 600 Seattle, Washington 98104 USA P: 206-624-5670 F: 206-624-3730 Rick Sundberg, FAIA, LEED AP, Principal in Charge (registered architect) Stephen Yamada-Heidner, AIA, LEED AP, Project Manager (registered architect) Martha Rogers, Project Architect (Construction Phase)(registered architect) John Kennedy, LEED AP, Project Architect (Design Phase) (registered architect) Misun Chung Gerrick, Job Captain (registered architect) Debbie Kennedy, Interiors Interior designer: Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects – Debbie Kennedy Project Manager: HomeSight Engineer(s): Civil Engineer:
The renovation and extension of the Southwest Branch Library was made possible as part of the Libraries for All initiative, approved by Seattle voters in 1998.