223 Yale at Alley24
Seattle
NBBJ

NBBJ proves that divide and conquer can mitigate the scale of long floor plates, with its new offices on a large, mixed-use urban block.

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	Click here for slide show. Photo © Benjamin Benschneider

By Randy Gragg

Twenty-two years ago, the Seattle-based architecture firm NBBJ was one of the first major companies to move back into Pioneer Square, the city’s then-neglected historic heart. The firm’s 200 employees helped spur a neighborhood renaissance. But having grown to 330 employees, and hampered by offices that were spread across six floors, in 2004 it decided to move and again play the agent of urban change. It became both the designer and the anchor tenant of Alley24, a mixed-use complex located in South Lake Union, a former industrial area being transformed by Vulcan Real Estate, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen’s firm.

NBBJ’s new headquarters are located within 223 Yale, the office component of Alley24. The site, a 256-by-360-foot city block, had been anchored by the Richmond Laundry, built in phases between 1917 and 1945. A landmark designation mandated the preservation of its masonry facade. Rather than simply piling 214,000 square feet of offices and retail shops, as well as 172 apartments, behind the laundry’s historic walls, NBBJ wanted to fashion a live/work/play environment that would showcase the firm’s commitment to sustainability, what design principal Brent Rogers describes as “doing the most with the least.” Additionally, the firm wanted to achieve a LEED Silver rating for the project.

The need to infuse the entire Alley24 block with light and air suggested a classic urban design scheme: Two midblock alleys that divide the site into quarters. Rogers clustered the entrances to offices, apartments, and underground parking around the alleys’ crossroads, creating a lively “Main and Main” feel; to ensure the perimeter remained active, he spread shops along the street-facing elevations. Town houses and flats occupy the former laundry, while apartment buildings flank it. These steel-framed buildings are clad in an innovative, recycled-paper-and-resin material called Richlite, while patterned concrete panels cover the posttensioned concrete office buildings.

NBBJ principal Alan Young led the team designing the firm’s new offices in 223 Yale, which is named after its street address. He located the main reception area as well as an art gallery on the ground-floor corner of Alley24’s internal intersection. A dramatic stair, made of reclaimed Douglas fir, ascends from this lobby to studio level. Dubbed the “Giant Steps,” it doubles as seating for companywide meetings as well as neighborhood gatherings.

Fostering a sense of community had been a challenge in NBBJ’s vertically diffuse former headquarters. Ironically, 223 Yale posed a problem of horizontality: The firm now occupies 75,000 square feet on two floors that, measuring 120 by 360 feet apiece, rival the size of football fields.

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Formal name of project:
223 Yale at Alley24

Location:
Seattle

Gross square footage:
362,500 sq. ft. for Alley24; 175,000 sq. ft. for 223 Yale

Year and month of completion:
February 2006

Owner:
Vulcan Real Estate, PEMCO Mutual Insurance Co.

Architect:
NBBJ
223 Yale Avenue North
Seattle, WA 98109
206-223-5555 tel.
206-621-2300 fax
www.nbbj.com

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