The potential to meet ambitious goals and the well articulated environmental qualities set this project apart. As a mixing bowl for people, the project works on many levels, enabling public encounter on the building square. The conceptual relationships of the spaces were thoughtfully conceived and well illustrated.

This is the work of a master grammarian. It practices the idiom incredibly well, but then advances that idiom by moving to a new level of investigation. The project moves well beyond the usual regional focus on craft. Talent like this should be invested in the region’s public buildings, as well.

This project is a powerful urban move that transforms a formally suburban office building into an important city destination.  The bold gesture is articulated by pulling out public space, connecting to transit, and re-engaging the city.  While the originality and risk of the execution did not match the ambition of the gesture, this project represents a courageous approach to a daunting problem. 

This is a very intelligent building in its context.  Liberating itself from the tropes of the local idiom, this project creates living space that is interesting and powerful.  The house has a whole spatial world inside it, with compelling oblique diagonal relationships between spaces.

Wit, a playful approach to type, and a willingness to question local idiomatic practice set this project apart.  While many regional projects respond to the natural environment with comfort and elegance, these cabins are raw, edgy, unafraid of the challenging aspects of nature.  At the same time, the user cannot escape the fact that the buildings impose on the landscape, with their steel wheels and tentative siting.  These simple structures engage the spiritual question of our place in the landscape.

The language for this project is simple and well executed, but what sets it apart is its willingness to take on more than being an object.  Rather than yielding to a natural temptation to engage too much with the amazing outdoor expanse, the design capture and limits outdoor space and transforms it as a landscape.  Despite its small footprint, the projects takes and transforms territory, beyond the boundaries of traditional architecture.  The long, linear response, expected in an urban lot, gains strength from its unexpected deployment in the open landscape.  The designer deals simply with surface and space, rather than focusing on lines and planes.

Weiss Manfredi’s transformative design works on all levels.  Commitedly urban, the sculpture park achieves an important transformation of the city by connecting it to the water, unique in its ability to tackle really difficult issues and succeed.  The design tackles important issues of our day: challenging urban form, engaging principals of sustainability, articulating and creating social change.  This project willingly leaves architecture’s comfort zone, deliberately entering the fields of politics, landscape and infrastructure.  The park evidences a leadership that sets an example for other projects in Seattle.

The project’s approach to an extremely challenging site is at once comforting and jarring; perspectival views allow the visitor to get lost in the procession, but juxtaposition of sky, water and railroad tracks allows safe glimpses of a rather hostile environment.  The designers make interesting use of simple raw materials like concrete, rendering them in new and interesting ways.