Photo: Aaron Leitz

800 5th Avenue Reposition

Seattle, Washington

The repositioning of 800 Fifth Avenue, a LEED Platinum building in Seattle’s downtown core, updates the role of the modern urban workplace by creating an experience that is better than home. Designed largely during the COVID‑19 pandemic, 800 Fifth Avenue captures the elements that made remote work attractive while underscoring urban amenities that serve both tenants and the wider public.

Urban Challenges

While 800 Fifth Avenue was built in 1981 for Seafirst Bank (later Bank of America), its existing conditions reflect many typical challenges of legacy commercial properties and urban centers. Existing public spaces functioned as largely transitory, with oversized and uncomfortable volumes and hard, cold materials. The 42-story tower volume framed an elevated exterior courtyard—a unique amenity for Seattle’s downtown core—that was unactivated, dark, and windswept. Courtyard access was confusing from the street, requiring a circuitous series of stairs and turns.

Engaging the Street

The project deliberately reengages with Fifth Avenue and its urban neighbors as well as an active transit hub at the corner. A welcoming entry plaza and generous stair create a threshold for the building and frame new spaces for people to people to mix and gather. This stoop simplifies circulation to the public courtyard, inviting the wider community to enjoy these outdoor areas. As users within the tower and throughout the surrounding business district return, 800 Fifth Avenue argues for the importance of active shared spaces in fostering a vibrant urban core.

Residential Design Approach

The repositioning creates an experience that is better than home, marrying residential strategies with the building’s existing architectural language. Drawing on fundamental tenets of residential design, highly crafted details and natural materials support a warm, comfortable interior environment. A series of architectural features scale volumes for intimate gatherings and connect users with art and nature. Inside, millwork provides a flexible framework for displaying art and objects, while native plantings frame exterior spaces, linked by public gardens.

New Public Gardens

800 Fifth Avenue’s courtyard is reimagined as a series of public gardens with multiple nodes for gathering. From the stoop at street level, new plantings and green space frame inviting exterior terraces that suit a variety of community and small-group uses, anchored by a hearth that establishes an all-seasons focal point. The repositioning clarified circulation to and through the courtyard, improving accessibility to outdoor public areas. A cantilevered pavilion overlooking Fifth Avenue blocks wind and acts as a featured destination within the courtyard, visually connecting the gardens and street. The pavilion was strategically inserted within the existing structural grid of the tower, scaling exterior spaces on either side with new active uses.

Previously, you were meant to be a little in awe, a bit intimidated, when you walked into a high-rise building. With this repositioning effort, we’re humanizing the space, building on the sense of the space as a hive of activity, a place with its own distinct vibe. Instead of a place that’s overpowering, it becomes somewhere you feel welcome to stay, to have a meal, to gather and collaborate. Kirsten Ring Murray, FAIA
Design Principal

CheckMate Winery

Oliver, BC, Canada

Hudson Valley Residence

Westchester, New York

Something isn't loading properly.

Please and try again, or use the main menu above.