Suyama Peterson Deguchi
Seattle
Suyama Peterson Deguchi

More closely resembling a gallery, these offices help the architects convey a refreshing artistic sentiment

© Claudio Santini

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By Sheri Olson

When the search began for new space for this design office, the goal was not more room, but a more urban—and urbane—location than its old residential neighborhood. The search resulted in a late 1800s livery-stable-turned-automobile-service-garage in Belltown, a gritty downtown neighborhood where hip nightclubs rub shoulders with old maritime flophouses.

The first clues signaing new life behind the anonymous gray facade are the deep metal frames surrounding Minimalist glass storefronts and a metal garage door. A steel channel bolted onto the facade is part of an extensive seismic retrofit and sets the tone for the confrontational relationship between the new and the old, the raw and the refined inside.

One of biggest undertakings was lowering the floor several feet along the front of the building to match the sidewalk, for a more accessible retail space. What was once the second floor now functions as the first floor, thanks to city fathers who regraded this section of Seattle at the turn of the last century, burying a whole level of the city underground. The past is left exposed in the mottled old walls where the below-grade windows are patched with new concrete.

From the front door, a steel ramp leads up to the 20-foot-tall gallery space at the center of the building, separated from the retail and office areas by white walls that bisect the building and provide needed shear walls. The gallery retains the worn wood-plank floor, with its exposed old-growth wood trusses and decking overhead intact. Narrow skylights parallel to the front and back walls cut into the roof to bring light deep inside. A luminous screen of translucent fiberglass panels on a wood-stud frame conceals the rest rooms along the north wall.

At the front of the building is a small second-floor conference area. A grand staircase sweeps up from the gallery to this private aerie. A floor-level window provides an unexpected glimpse of street life below, and the movement of the sun is mapped on the bare white walls as it spills through a steel oculus cut into the front facade.

Large plates of hot-rolled steel differentiate the office floor from the gallery. Usually open, two huge plywood doors can roll shut like barn doors to close off offices from the gallery. A new roof monitor that angles up toward a large window high on the back wall of the building serves as the focal point of the office area. Below, an 18-by-8-foot opening with a rolled-steel stair reaches down to a large wood shop in the basement where designers can mock-up entire building components.

See the December 2002 issue of Architectural Record for full coverage of this project.

Formal name of Project:
Suyama Peterson Deguchi

Location:
Seattle

Gross square footage:
12,283 sq ft

Total construction cost:
$500,000

Owner:
George and Kim Suyama

Architect:
Suyama Peterson Deguchi
2324 Second Avenu
Seattle, WA 98121
ph: 206-256-0809
fax: 206-256-0810