June 15, 2020

Watershed Building

Photos from Weber Thompson [enlarge]

The seven-story Watershed Building at 900 N. 34th St. in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood was designed to meet the stringent requirements of the Living Building Challenge.

The recently completed 72,000-square-foot building is part of a city of Seattle pilot program that offers incentives for meeting requirements or “petals” of the challenge. Stringent energy and water conservation measures are aimed at minimizing a building’s impact on the environment.

Watershed is designed to meet the “materials,” “beauty” and “place” petals. It also meets city requirements for reducing total energy usage by at least 25% and total water usage by 75%, as well as reusing 50% of captured stormwater on site.

The building treats polluted stormwater from Troll Avenue and the Aurora Bridge through a series of stepped bioretention planters. The system will treat over 300,000 gallons of stormwater a year. Another 200,000 gallons of stormwater from the building’s roof will be collected and reused.

The seven-story building has about 60,000 square feet of office space and 5,600 square feet of ground-level retail space. There are 14 parking stalls and secure bike storage for 100 bikes.

Take a virtual tour of Watershed at vimeo.com/417833221

Developer: COU LLC

Architect, landscape architect: Weber Thompson

General contractor: Turner Construction

Living Building consultant: Skanska USA

Structural engineer: DCI Engineers

MEP engineer: WSP

Do you have photos of recent projects? Share them with DJC readers. Send high-resolution images and information to lisa.lannigan@djc.com.

Previous columns:

• Wagner Education Center at the Center for Wooden Boats, 06-08-2020
• Thomas Street Lofts, 06-01-2020
• Sid Lee, 05-26-2020
• Rupee Bar, 05-18-2020
• Olympic Peninsula Kidney Center, 05-11-2020
• Knack Collective, 05-04-2020
• The Bond, 04-27-2020
• Nexus, 04-20-2020