Completed in 2023 the 13th Avenue Apartments features one of b9 architects’ cleanest and simplest designs to date. Seeking our help in 2018, the client had already gone through an early design process with another architect, but the design they arrived at could not be realized due to code compliance issues. Through a flexible and collaborative design process, the team created an elegant, 20-unit infill project, mid-block on 13th Avenue in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. With an elegant and organized facade that belies its complicated design, the 13th Avenue Apartment represents excellence that can be achieved with the right client, material selection and detailing.

When the project first came to b9 architects, it looked very different. With another firm’s preliminary Design Review proposal that did not have a path to meeting Seattle’s land use, energy or building codes, our design team worked with the client to propose a new solution. After an initial site investigation, the client agreed to have b9 restart the design process, keeping the idea of two structures, but connecting them with a series of stacked exterior walkways and interior stairwell and elevator. This strategy allowed the “front” structure to act as a centerpiece for the design while the structure in the rear could act as a secondary element. With an engaged client and multiple b9 team members owning specific aspects of the project, the design process focused on collaboration and quick decision making to move the project forward, helping the client make up for lost time.

The project design takes advantage of the “single exit” allowance in the Seattle Building Code. Limited to 4 units per floor and a maximum distance between each unit’s entry and the stair and elevator, the project benefits from providing only one stair. The elevator permits the project to provide a small roof deck for all residents with access to amazing views of downtown Seattle, the Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic Mountains beyond. The circulation spaces are the “connector” described above that tie the front and rear portions of the structure together. From the street, the building reads as two elements due to the circulation being inset from the north and south side facades. The rear facade shifts half of the mass to provide relief for the homes across the alley and to create a variety of unit types within the project.

Due to the dimensions of the site, the modulation at the center of the site creates relief to adjacent sites, similar to many of b9’s infill housing projects.  However, the difference at this site is that the front facade is purposely clear and simple. The Design Review process in Seattle frequently encourages projects to undulate massing to create depth along street frontages. With a site at 35’ wide by 120’ feet deep, we were adamant that the front façade should be flat and create depth and texture primarily with material expression. There is no space for the front facade. Instead of shifting in or out, the 13th Avenue Apartments relies on simple detailing, a brick frame or grid complemented with contrasting infill panels and large windows and doors. As an assembled integral colored material, brick creates texture and depth on the front volume of the project. Limited to two projecting balconies, this is the simplest front facade b9 has designed. When taken as a whole, the project is complex, carving out the center of the site to setback from an adjacent Single Family home to the south and established brick apartment to the north.

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.