CWB’s new Wagner Education Center was inspired by the wooden boats on view within and serves as an armature for supporting the display, restoration, and appreciation of these boats. In service to CWB’s mission of increasing access to the water, the building was carefully sited to fit within the existing park at Lake Union, while also presenting a more visible face to the city beyond.

The new building bridges the divide between neighborhood and lakefront, fostering widespread community access. The Wagner Education Center is sited to sit within established circulation networks, engaging with bicycle paths, streetcar and bus lines, walking trails, and boats to attract over 100,000 visitors and 1,200 volunteers annually. The building also provides the park’s only publicly accessible restrooms.

The new building houses a multi-functional “sail loft” used as a youth classroom during the day and repurposed in the evening for events; new gallery and exhibit space; and a boat shop designed to facilitate the restoration of the museum’s largest boats and the construction of new boats from historic designs. A double-height glass window wall and a large covered porch on the boat shop allows the construction and restoration activities within to spill outside, inviting the public to engage and celebrating the historic boats for which CWB is most beloved.

The Center for Wooden Boats hosts public sails, community events, skills-building programs—many for at-risk youth, offered in partnership with local schools—as well as highlighting the boat-building culture of local First Nations communities.