First light: Close collaboration helps team deliver ‘total artwork’

Photo by Moris Moreno; courtesy of MG2

The pool, located 440 feet above the ground, required the installation of a temporary structure, consisting of castellated steel beams that were joined at one end to the concrete core of the building, to support the formwork of its concrete body. “[They] they were cantilevered about 40 feet beyond the footprint of the tower,” says Jooyeol Oh, director of MG2, the project’s executive architect. The beams were also connected to the front edge of the floor slab below, reinforced by three concrete slabs connected by temporary steel poles. The full length of these beams was needed to provide two years of collaboration. swimming pool.

The building contains over 50 unique unit types, which reduces the level of repeatability typically relied upon in tower projects.
Photo by Moris Moreno; courtesy of MG2

The scope included the excavation of Seattle’s deepest publicly accessible basement—eight stories deep with an additional 12-foot-deep slab. “Given the extreme excavation depth, limited site footprint and lot line construction, a telescopic bucket was required to efficiently remove debris,” says Mitch Zutter, Build Group project executive.

To facilitate close collaboration, the team co-located offices. “Questions were resolved through in-person discussions rather than phone tag or extended email exchanges,” says Zutter. Oh, ok, citing an issue with the 7th floor garden as an example: “Because the architect was working on site and participated in the impromptu discussion, an alternative solution was found much faster than in a typical RFI process. In fact, an RFI was issued simply as a confirmation of the solution.”