Miller Hull renovates Seattle’s Lake Union Piers

Smack dab in the midst of Seattle is a freshwater lake referred to as Lake Union. The South Lake Union neighborhood has lived a number of lives: It was initially house to the Duwamish Indigenous folks however morphed into an industrial area stuffed with lumber mills and fuel crops after white settlement from the nineteenth century on to the Eighties. Immediately, it has once more shifted as town transitions towards extra sustainable dwelling and dealing. The group, and Lake Union itself, is now encircled by inexperienced infrastructure like parks and pedestrian paths. Amongst these enhancements is the renovated Lake Union Piers challenge by native agency Miller Hull. Its completion marks the agency’s first challenge accomplished below its EMission Zero initiative.

Lake Union Piers is a recreation spot situated alongside the southern portion of Lake Union. Miller Hull renovated three Eighties industrial constructions spanning 5 acres to permit native eating places, leisure, and retail to flourish inside this public maritime hub. In between the buildings is an open plaza and alongside the waterfront is a promenade the place folks sit and take within the surrounding shoreline surroundings.

Since its founding in 1977, Miller Hull has designed with a sustainable edge. The most recent inexperienced initiative, EMission Zero, launched in 2021 with the purpose of eliminating greenhouse fuel emissions in all Miller Hull tasks. “EMission Zero has 4 elements for Miller Hull: Design, Educate, Advocate, and Offset,” principal Jim Hanford instructed AN. “The concept is that the challenge group—proprietor, contractor, and designer—works collectively to scale back or get rid of each future operational emissions (from constructing power use) and embodied emissions (from development).” For the Lake Union Piers challenge, Miller Hull collaborated with the proprietor, Vulcan Actual Property; and contractor, Abbott Development. Happily, all events agreed to take part in EMission Zero, and every offset one-third of the Lake Union Piers’ A1-A3 emissions.

Lake Union Piers contains three buildings that have been fully renovated to match each EMission Zero requirements together with Seattle’s present Vitality Code. Miller Hull senior affiliate Cory Mattheis offered perception into how the design group used a “subtractive” course of for the design. “The subtractive method to creating house got here from very pragmatic reasoning. The present buildings have been constructed in 1986, at a time when shoreline setbacks and environmental issues have been totally different,” Mattheis defined. “Confronted with this problem, we determined that carving away on the current massing was one of the simplest ways to redefine the language of the challenge whereas offering essential reduction to the beforehand hardened perimeter.”

The three buildings exhibit distinctive geometric shapes which can be wrapped in heat wood shiplap vertical panels by Kebony and darkish metallic roofing by AEP Span that extends to the perimeters of the buildings. Renovating the three current constructions reasonably than constructing from the bottom up was a vital step to hit EMission objectives. Hanford famous that reusing the present constructions, together with the wood body and concrete basis, helped immensely with assembly the sustainable purpose by way of its low embodied emissions.

“To us, this challenge represents a method for architects to embrace the worth of current buildings reasonably than all the time turning to new development as the reply,” Hanford stated. In a method, Lake Union Piers mirrors the encompassing space by additionally dwelling a number of lives—however this time, with an environmental grasp that’s right here to remain.

Undertaking Specs