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FINNE Svendsen Building
FINNE Svendsen Building
Seattle, WA, United States
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FINNE Svendsen Building
Seattle, WA, United States
Firm
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2018
SIZE
5000 sqft - 10,000 sqft
BUDGET
$1M - 5M
The FINNE Svendsen Building is a striking and highly energy-efficient loft building in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood.
The design and building process was unusual, since architect Nils Finne was both designer and builder owner. The client-architect meetings were brief!
The building occupies a corner lot, with street facades on the south and west. The two street facades have a nuanced play of light and shadow. The walls of glass and wood are treated as folded planes, with each façade folding back and forth within an overall depth dimension of about 10”. On floors one and three, the large glass panels project forward, while on floor two, the glass is recessed. The pattern on floor two is an inverted version of floors one and three. The wood spandrel panels are custom-milled Western Red Cedar with a blackened stain.
The live-work building creates large, open loft spaces on three floors, with high ceilings, huge windows and exposed long-span steel structure. The building can accommodate a range of uses, both present and future.
The three floors of the building have 12-ft ceilings and 11-ft high windows with exposed structural steel supports and steel decking ceilings. The floors are clear-span without internal columns interrupting the work space. Mechanical air distribution is limited to the linear core on the northern side of the building, so work areas have clean metal decking ceilings with no ductwork. The building has in-floor radiant heating and cooling, resulting in minimal energy usage.
Operating windows are placed strategically throughout the façade, allowing the building to be naturally ventilated in Seattle’s mild climate. The oversized window walls on the south and west also allow natural lighting to penetrate deeply onto the floor plate, keeping lights turned off for much of the daylight hours.
A custom sapele wood front door presents a warm contrast to the building’s blackened wood cladding. A delicate screen of wood slats filters light into the main building lobby. The 3-story stair opens directly from the lobby and has been designed to encourage use on a daily basis, keeping elevator usage to a minimum. A three-story glass wall floods the stairwell with natural light, and the all-steel stair floats in the space. Custom-designed perforations in the steel stair railing panels provide unexpected shadow patterns when the late-afternoon sun shines into the stairwell.
The building was designed to be a sustainable structure from the start, with 40% higher insulation values than required by code, efficient natural ventilation, large amounts of natural lighting, water-conserving plumbing fixtures, LED lighting, and locally sourced materials. Windows have high-performance Low-E insulated glazing and are equipped with concealed shades. The building roof has been equipped with photovoltaic panels for electrical production, averaging about 850 Kwh per year. The modest initial amount of PV panels will be expanded over time.
The design and building process was unusual, since architect Nils Finne was both designer and builder owner. The client-architect meetings were brief!
The building occupies a corner lot, with street facades on the south and west. The two street facades have a nuanced play of light and shadow. The walls of glass and wood are treated as folded planes, with each façade folding back and forth within an overall depth dimension of about 10”. On floors one and three, the large glass panels project forward, while on floor two, the glass is recessed. The pattern on floor two is an inverted version of floors one and three. The wood spandrel panels are custom-milled Western Red Cedar with a blackened stain.
The live-work building creates large, open loft spaces on three floors, with high ceilings, huge windows and exposed long-span steel structure. The building can accommodate a range of uses, both present and future.
The three floors of the building have 12-ft ceilings and 11-ft high windows with exposed structural steel supports and steel decking ceilings. The floors are clear-span without internal columns interrupting the work space. Mechanical air distribution is limited to the linear core on the northern side of the building, so work areas have clean metal decking ceilings with no ductwork. The building has in-floor radiant heating and cooling, resulting in minimal energy usage.
Operating windows are placed strategically throughout the façade, allowing the building to be naturally ventilated in Seattle’s mild climate. The oversized window walls on the south and west also allow natural lighting to penetrate deeply onto the floor plate, keeping lights turned off for much of the daylight hours.
A custom sapele wood front door presents a warm contrast to the building’s blackened wood cladding. A delicate screen of wood slats filters light into the main building lobby. The 3-story stair opens directly from the lobby and has been designed to encourage use on a daily basis, keeping elevator usage to a minimum. A three-story glass wall floods the stairwell with natural light, and the all-steel stair floats in the space. Custom-designed perforations in the steel stair railing panels provide unexpected shadow patterns when the late-afternoon sun shines into the stairwell.
The building was designed to be a sustainable structure from the start, with 40% higher insulation values than required by code, efficient natural ventilation, large amounts of natural lighting, water-conserving plumbing fixtures, LED lighting, and locally sourced materials. Windows have high-performance Low-E insulated glazing and are equipped with concealed shades. The building roof has been equipped with photovoltaic panels for electrical production, averaging about 850 Kwh per year. The modest initial amount of PV panels will be expanded over time.
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