As the first apartment project b9 architects was hired to do, The Portal in Fremont holds a special significance for the firm. From the outset, the client’s strategy included petitioning the City of Seattle for a site specific contract rezone, a process through which the City Planning Department, and finally the City Council could vote to change the parcel’s land use designation based on the development’s proposed design. In undergoing this process and extending the permit timeline, the project was able to gain floor area and height above the limit of its original zone requirements. Working through this process would also make this one of b9 architects’ most collaborative projects to date.

 From the beginning of the project, the team wanted to design a building that would feel rooted in the neighborhood. Through the Contract Rezone and Design Review process, b9 architects met with community members and organizations to hear their needs from the new project, and collaborate on the final design. Fremont, known for its eclecticism, is home to a number of famous public art spaces and events. Within walking distance of Portal, are the famous Fremont Troll, the Waiting for the Interurban statue and pergola, and the statue of Lenin. Annually the Fremont Solstice parade runs along 36th Avenue in Fremont featuring groups of nude, body painted cyclists. To match the community oriented spirit of the neighborhood, Portal was designed with a porous commercial space at street level. A restaurant space with roll up garage doors facing the street, and the building's interior courtyard allows customers and residents the ability to pour out into each space, blurring the boundaries between public and private space. This initial strategy carried through the entire Contract Rezone and collaborative processes with the community.

In general, a contract rezone through the City of Seattle would suit a larger development of aggregated parcels, covering perhaps a full block or more, and requiring design presentations to the neighborhood Design Review Board. If approved there, the strategy would be presented to the Seattle Hearing Examiner, who produces a report and recommendation to the Seattle City Council for approval. For Fremont Portal, the team committed early-on to undergo this process for this one 8,000 sq ft lot by itself. On a slope near North Lake Union, the site is adjacent to the historic landmark building of the Fremont Branch of the Seattle Public Library, and the historic George Washington Memorial Bridge (Aurora Bridge). To achieve this ambitious goal, the project team began several collaborative relationships; land use lawyer Josh Brower, joined the process early in the design review process to guide the team, while Principal Brad Khouri and architect Brian Johnson began a conversation with the Seattle Public Library and the Fremont Neighborhood Council to secure their support for the project.

The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods oversees all buildings with historic landmark status.  As part of the review, DON, wanting to ensure that the building proposal through the Contract Rezone did not obstruct  access to natural daylight, requested a shadow study to specifically examine how a building at an increased height would impact the three Reading Room windows on the landmark structure’s east facade. Fortunately, b9 had determined early in the project to create an internal courtyard that carved away building mass creating a void adjacent to the historic windows. After creating a shadow study in our BIM software, ArchiCAD, b9 architects chose to remove a unit from the top floor of the south west corner of the project to ensure the library kept its access to natural light. This move also created an opportunity for the project: to create a shared resident patio space on the fifth floor.

A second collaborator on the Portal, the Fremont Neighborhood Council was an important organization for the contract rezone process. Their support of the project would go a long way in securing approval from the Design Review Board, and other entitlement processes within the City of Seattle. The team reached out to the group early for their input and guidance on the project. In the conversation, the Fremont Neighborhood Council leadership pushed for more two bedroom units. In the initial Early Design Guidance meeting, the Design Review board asked for the proposed bulk and mass be reduced significantly along its north side, which resulted in the project losing sevenn of the eight proposed two bedroom units. After coordinating the reduction with the Design Review board with the ideal unit mix from the Fremont Neighborhood Council, the team found four more two bedroom units, while only reducing the total number of units by two, from 56 units to 54 units. For comparison, the code compliant version without the requested Contract Rezone would have resulted in 44 units. Per the Fremont Neighborhood Council’s recommendations the project went further in creating transparent spaces to combine the commercial and residential uses. Large windows to each commercial space flank the residential lobby creating a full line of sight through each space.

The Neighborhood Council also worked with the team to integrate public art installations with the project. The team reached out to 4Culture, a Seattle-based art advocacy group to orchestrate a search for public artists for the project, from Seattle and beyond. Local artist Caroline Davis represented b9 architects in the search that selected Verda Alexander, a renowned Los Angeles interior designer. Inspired by Fremont, Alexander iterated on her theme “Portal”, which would carry on as the project’s namesake, to create two pieces of public art. With a desire for the art to be intrinsic to the building, rather than additional, Alexander worked with our design team to detail the building's siding, engraving the art directly into the sourced brick cladding. A second art piece, originally proposed as a glass mural attached to the project, became vinyl applied directly to metal siding to best resemble actual building cladding.

Thanks to a highly collaborative design process facilitated by the Contract Rezone, the Fremont Portal is an elegant addition to the eclectic Seattle neighborhood. Replacing traditional hallways, exterior walkways provide abundant light and open air on at least two sides of project units. A courtyard, privately managed, but publicly accessible exists at street level, abutted by the restaurant space, currently leased by Just Burgers, and the landscaping of the Fremont Branch Library. Shared community areas, including the central courtyard at street level, the shared balcony on the fifth floor, and a large roof deck provide outdoor space. The theme of community collaboration continues through the resident experience as a miniature p-patch in galvanized steel planter boxes on the roof provides residents a space to grow their own plants and vegetables. Fremont Portal exemplifies for b9 architects  what can be accomplished in a truly collaborative process that benefits the neighborhood.

In 2018, the Wallingford 45 project  completed construction in Wallingford, a charming, single-family neighborhood in Seattle, WA.  Designed by b9 architects as an 48 unit apartment, the project spans the transition from neighborhood commercial to multifamily zoning and is one of the first additions of its type to the area in recent years. Bradley Khouri, Principal and founder of b9 architects, and Tom Cole, b9 architects’ Associate and project designer, sat down recently to discuss how they approached the project with integrity and accountability to create an excellent building endorsed by the client and the neighborhood.

“We went into EDG with townhouses on the south parcel,” Tom Cole reflected. A four-story apartment on the prominent corner of N 45th Street and Woodlawn Avenue N had the potential to be radical for the context of preeminently single-family homes. Fortunately, the project site consisted of four parcels, with one to the south of b9’s proposed four-story apartment, which the team used to explore solutions to transition the building into the lower density neighborhood. In their initial design, the b9 team had proposed a duplex and a Single-Family house to sit in between a 40-foot apartment building and the existing lower density context. 

 “After EDG, I remember thinking we should not do this”, Khouri said. “It was impossible to park the houses, because the lot was so narrow.” Instead, the team went back to the drawing board to find a different solution. What they delivered changed the project for the better.

“We had to have hard conversations with our clients, to take accountability for what wouldn’t work in the first design,” Khouri admitted. Feeling as though the proposed duplex and single-family house isolated the apartment from the neighborhood, the design team chose to explore a more holistic solution to the project. They came up with a three-story apartment structure lightly connected to the larger building. Since the zoning transitions from the previous NC-40 zone to the lower density LR-2 zone, the two structures step down in height from 44’ to 34’ down to its Single-Family neighbor, creating a transitional moment from the commercial core to the adjacent neighborhood. To further heighten the connection to the lower density neighborhood, the front unit of the smaller apartment has a stoop leading up from the street. With their solution fully formed and approved by the client, b9 submitted for a Master Use Permit and asked the Wallingford Community Council for a meeting, to ensure their voices were heard.

At the meeting with the Wallingford Community Council, it was apparent that the neighborhood was apprehensive about the project. “This was potentially the first new project along this stretch of 45th. We were very interested in how it could be an identifier for the neighborhood,” Tom Cole reflected, but that goal would add a level of density to the neighborhood that is uncommon. N 45th Street is an important commercial stretch in the heart of Wallingford, “but it’s depth along 45th is shallow” remarked Bradley Khouri. Within a couple blocks of this strip of commercial, in which the code allows more height and density, are vast blocks of lower density uses, primarily Single-Family homes. “It’s different from many of the urban centers of Seattle, in which the concentration is more of a radius from the center, like Capitol Hill, Fremont, or Ballard”, according to Khouri. As a result the context is different from other neighborhoods in the city, as well as the priorities of its neighbors. “It became an important focus for the project,” said Cole.

“They had a concern that there was so little parking and so much density, that no matter what we did, it would be a negative contribution to Wallingford,” Khouri remarked. In addition, during Seattle’s review of the Master Use Permit application, the city eliminated the definition of “frequent transit”, due to an appeal to the Hearing Examiner on another project nearby.  This resulted in a concern for b9 that this project’s MUP would be appealed, as it relied on Seattle’s frequent transit definition to create a new mixed-use project with no parking requirement in Wallingford’s Residential Urban Village.  To allay this concern and avoid a potential appeal of the MUP, Khouri, Cole and the design team proposed two significant changes. First, they added an underground parking garage beneath the structure with twenty vehicular stalls as well as bicycle parking to reduce the amount of vehicles on the street. The second, was to re-examine the cladding in order to improve the perceived quality of the building. Up to now, the team had proposed a mix of metal and wood cladding. At this point, to give the building a more classic feel, Khouri and the client agreed to clad the majority of the project in brick and metal. These decisions not only convinced the Wallingford Community Council on the efficacy of the project, they also helped shape an elegant project.

Located at a prominent corner in a largely single-family neighborhood, Wallingford 45 creates an excellent example of a neighborhood solution.  It spans the transition from commercial to small scale residential, with a historic building to the east and quaint single-family dwellings to the south. Three high-quality massing and material strategies help to break the project into three smaller, connected structures. This is a direct response to the scale and texture of the existing urban fabric, with each approach articulating one of three prominent, visible facades. A departure for b9 architects, two community spaces are detached from the ground level and separated from the street. A raised courtyard space above the residential lobby breaks the corner volume into two smaller, somewhat repetitive elements. This internal courtyard is lifted above the street in the center of the building so as to minimize its impact on the neighborhood while activating the center of the project. Similarly, the roof deck is pulled back from the edges of the building to maximize privacy for adjacent structures. As a mixed-use building, with two commercial storefronts fronting 45th Street with one wrapping the corner to Woodlawn Avenue N, the individual cladding strategies creates a break giving each commercial space its own identity. At the corner, a space designed for a restaurant has been tenanted by Grand Central Bakery, a regional staple that makes fantastic use of a raised patio that extends into the right of way and connects the commercial space with the pedestrian area.

By approaching an impactful project from the beginning with integrity and with a spirit of collaboration, b9 architects’ and its client created an excellent project that has been well received by its immediate neighbors and its local community . The integrity of the client is visible in their creation of a program entirely of one-bedroom units, with below-grade parking and a commitment to a high quality execution. The raised courtyard provides access to daylight on two sides for a majority of the units. . The integrity of the Wallingford Community Council, after reviewing the team’s responsive design, to speak out for a project they believed in. b9 architects’ integrity in recognizing a poor design solution early on created a moment of transition that better connects the project to its adjacent commercial and residential neighbors. In this case, a values-based project design resulted in a high value project.

In mid-April, Principal, Bradley Khouri, and Project Architect, Brian Johnson, sat down with our Administrative Lead, Michael From, to have an in-depth conversation about 11th and Aloha, our latest completed project in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. The 4-story, b9-designed apartment structure, consists of 34 1-bedroom and studio units and a network of exterior spaces.  These vary in privacy and include street-level private patios, exterior walkways connecting to units, a multi-leveled courtyard, and a communal roof deck. It sits on a sloped corner lot, appearing to transition from a 4-story structure to 2-stories. The exterior facades consist a modern composition of red brick, Swiss Pearl siding, steel balconies, and stepped concrete planters. An open breezeway from E Aloha Street cuts through the massing and connects to the external circulation and multi-leveled courtyard.

This project is particularly special to us, due to its contextually responsive design and location at a transition from Single Family to Lowrise Multi-family zoning. This is a stark difference in density, height and parking requirements, and it is at the edge of a highly established and historic part of the neighborhood. With proactive engagement from the design team and neighboring residents, and investment from our client, what could have been a highly contentious design process became an adaptive and collaborative effort. Bradley and Brian reflected on this particular stage, and how it embodied our values, ultimately leading to the success of the final design.

When a project in the city of Seattle goes through the full Design Review process, it is presented at a minimum of two public meetings. First at an Early Design Guidance (EDG) meeting, where multiple massing alternatives are reviewed, and second, months later, at a Recommendation meeting, where a more developed design is presented. A board of volunteers, consisting of design professionals, development professionals, local business owners, and neighborhood representatives makes comments and suggestions to the design team to ensure that new developments meet the intent of the City’s and Neighborhood-specific Design Guidelines. At these meetings, members of the public are encouraged to provide feedback regarding the design proposal through public comment. Bradley presented the initial design for 11th and Aloha to the East Design Review Board of the City of Seattle, providing 3 design alternatives based on extensive site and context analysis. “At the time, we thought we were going to present alternative three and they’d say go for it,” Brian reflected. Fortunately for the now completed project, the presentation was not as straightforward as Johnson anticipated.

While the Board gave the project team guidance typical for a project of this type, several members of the Single Family neighborhood to the north and east of the site were vocal about their concerns, centered particularly around height, bulk, density and parking. After the meeting ended, the team from b9 architects and self-selected members of the neighborhood decided to schedule a meeting to discuss how to move forward with a design that met everyone’s goals.

The proposed building changed significantly between the first two meetings. The massing, originally bold, anchored at the corner of 11th Avenue E and E Aloha Street reduced significantly, particularly at that corner. At the first meeting with the neighborhood team, b9’s client made a pledge to the group that the building would have a high-quality cladding. “Having that pledged opened up things that we had never explored before in the practice,” Brian recalled. To complement the context of the neighborhood, the team chose to clad a significant portion of the building, notably the frontage to E Aloha Street with Inca colored, Mission brick from local Mutual Materials. Two volumes, one clad in high-quality white Swiss Pearl panel, and the other in gray corrugated metal panel rise above the brick volume. The materials help indicate the change in scale as the building moves away from E Aloha street and articulate variation in the building massing.

Another significant change was that the main entry was relocated from E Aloha Street to the southernmost edge of the building on 11th Avenue E. “We had to think of 11th Avenue E as a front. When it became the more prominent facade, we were able to shift the entire building away from the street and create a strong brick base with landscaping buffering it from the street,” Bradley said. By placing the entry on 11th Avenue E, a flat street at a lower elevation, the design team was able to maintain the project’s unit count, while lowering the overall height of the building. 11th and Aloha, in its finished state, rests under the allowed height limit by almost a full story. Even though the move created a few basement units, b9’s signature courtyard community space (in this instance with multiple levels) hollowed out the southeast corner of the structure allowing an additional light source to all units adjacent to it.

After the three weeks of intensive redesign, b9 invited the neighborhood team into their office to see a newly revised project, designed around the feedback shared. The neighborhood group stood behind and celebrated the changes made. They became advocates for the new design, recommending it to the full group. In the end, they endorsed the project with a letter to the city, and their support played a significant part in the final approval by the Design Review Board at the Recommendation meeting.

The core of 11th and Aloha is a story of a collaboration between the design/development team and the neighborhood community group surrounding the project. “This group of neighbors knew what they could do, and they actually wanted to work toward a solution,” Brian remembers of the process, “a lot of the success can be attributed to both groups acting proactively”. What resulted is an elegant solution to a specific zoning condition, one that is both unique to the site and also prevalent throughout other Seattle neighborhoods. The final design reconciles the contrast between an established Single Family neighborhood with the necessity of increased density, and a development boom happening in Seattle’s Lowrise and other multifamily zones.

“My proudest moment was winning over the group in that first meeting in our office”, Brian said, “feeling the camaraderie after we showed them that brick building. From that moment on, they were 100% behind it.”

“They became part of our team,” Bradley attested.