2013 AIA Honor Awards: Art Stable

Seattle / Olson Kundig Architects, Seattle

1 MIN READ

Olson Kundig is known for integrating industrial-inspired mechanical systems into its projects, but Art Stable takes it to a new level. Built on an urban infill site that once housed a horse stable, the mixed-use building uses an enormous 80-foot-5-inch-tall hinge designed to manually open steel-framed windows with a custom hand wheel. A crane on the top of the building can lift heavy objects into residential units. And an innovative system of geothermal loops inserted in structural piles offers energy-efficient radiant heating and cooling.

Jury: “The project is a modern update of the proven flexible and dependable multistory warehouse stock of the early 20th century.”

Client: “The most successful part of this project is that Tom Kundig was able to design a building that is beautiful, highly functional for its occupants, and extraordinarily creative in its reflection of the building’s history—all for a developer who was ultimately concerned with the project’s profitability.” —Jim Dow, founding partner of Point32, the project’s developer

For more images, visit ARCHITECT magazine’s project gallery.

About the Author

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson has been a contributing editor with ARCHITECT since 2008. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Co.Design, and CityLab among many other publications.

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