You're invited!
Please join us at b9 architects as well as a diverse panel of architects, developers, educators and more for a discussion about the relationship between zoning and equity here in Seattle.
When: Tuesday, September 22 from 5-8pm
Where: b9 architects, 610 2nd Ave, Downtown Seattle
In the meantime, feel free to stop by our storefront and experience our exhibition, which addresses the connection between zoning and equity.
For more information, please see our facebook post below:
Seattle Design Festival 2015 at b9 architects!ZONING :: EQUITYSeptember 22, 2015, 5pm-8pmThe exhibit and event will...
Posted by b9 architects on Thursday, September 17, 2015
We are proud to share that our latest project View Haus 5, Seattle's first multifamily housing project built to passive house standards, has won 1st Place in the Multifamily category at the 2015 North American Passive House Conference. Hosted by PHIUS (Passive House Institute US), the conference brings "together building scientists, engineers, policy makers and others to share the latest knowledge and experience in passive building." (PHIUS website)
For more information and press on View Haus 5, check out these recent articles:
"Inside View Haus 5: Passive House" (KOMO news)
"Green building: Keeping pace with Seattle’s boom" (Crosscut)
"Multi-zone Heat Pump for Pioneering Passive Multifamily" (Mistubishi Electric Case Study)
As designers, homeowners, neighbors, and community builders, we at b9 strive to help improve the quality of living through design and construction. Our project is a testament that urban living can be environmentally conscious and responsible.
Viewhaus 5 is just the beginning.
Poster presented at the North American Passive House Conference
Envelope Section Diagram
Section Diagram highlighting design elements
Our friends over at Build LLC have the latest on an exciting new project that we have been collaborating on. Check out their blog here for some excellent writing on the subject:
As urban planners, architects, landscape architects, designers, and people who simply enjoy living in the city and thinking about good design, it doesn’t get much better than this. Projects of this complexity and potential community benefit are what most of us on the design team were trained to do in school, and it’s exactly what we love getting our heads around in the profession.
We have just completed our Early Design Guidance Design Review in front of the East Neighborhood Board, and we're excited to begin designing with the recommendations from the Board and the public!
Design in Public is an initiative of AIA Seattle, which focuses on celebrating the variety of possibilities and ways that design can help build a better Seattle. This year's DiP's Seattle Design Festival is called "Design for Equity" - a call to ask, "what is equity and what is equitable design?"
b9 architects is responding with an installation and subsequent event that questions the pursuit of equity with zoning code. As community builders and city orchestrators, we at b9 have witnessed a significant deal of inequity in our zoning laws that inhibit our community and our city to grow and provide opportunity for all. A topic that is omnipresent in the news due to recent code changes and following debates, zoning is a complex subject to explore and communicate.
We are currently still in the process of conceptualizing our installation with an intention of utilizing our storefront as a venue of discussion and exposure. Questions will be posed: what does zoning look like now? What would Seattle look like if the zoning map changed and building types intermixed? How would that impact the community? How would such changes affect neighborhood character, demographics, property values? How could zoning actively improve equity in Seattle?
Our installation will be informative and engaging, with the goal to provide an opportunity for the user to consider what zoning means to him/herself and to recognize zoning at a variety of scales.
Our first pass at our installation is a series of maps of Seattle at different scales that display the current condition of zoning in Seattle and relate it to the current debate of rezoning, density, and affordable housing. In relation to the maps will be 3-dimensional sections of height and bulk limits of each zone, materialized into abstracted blocks that you can potentially move and rearrange to create zoning conditions to your judgment.
The beginning of our maps to be displayed on our storefront windows. This one shows the urban villages of Seattle, color-coded based on Urban Villages, Urban Centers, and Urban Residential Villages.
Be sure to check back to see the progress of our installation for the Seattle Design Festival: Design for Equity 2015!
In the meantime, here are a few webpages that speak on this significant topic of zoning and equity.
Seattle council passes controversial changes to zoning (king5.com)
Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA)
9 words that shook Seattle: Are our zoning roots really racial? (Crosscut.com)
Rethink single-family zoning? Seattle officials open to some changes (Seattletimes.com)
Mayor Murray withdraws proposal to allow more density in single-family zones (Seattletimes.com)
Last summer, we moved into our new office space, and this summer, we're proud to launch our new website!
Our practice is constantly and happily always in progress, so stay tuned for more exciting news!
