Accommodating Tenant Improvements Without Breaking the Schedule
Facebook’s campus includes twin Class A office buildings with strong retail identity at ground level and below grade parking. Building setbacks provide critical light and air circulation to retain the sweetgum trees. Lower level and roof level terraces feature lush greenspace with functional outdoor workspace for employees. A system of cantilevered beams and slabs, carefully designed to preserve floor to-floor clearances, accommodates the cascading façade and heavy bio-retention cells.
Adapted the design for a series of significant tenant-requested tenant improvement changes during construction, including cafés and a multi-story atrium and stairwell. Creating a tenant decision schedule based on last-possible dates to maintain the original permitting schedule with the City of Seattle allowed the project to remain on course and eliminated costly change orders.
Supported the team’s vision to increase circulation and vertically tie workspaces together with the addition of a two-story feature stair, connecting the lobby entrance to the third-floor amenity space. This bold alteration to the concrete gravity system affected the transfer beams, which serve as the backbone for the offset, cascading façade. Through strategic, expedited collaboration with the buildout teams and the City of Seattle, we negotiated a variance permit that enabled integration of this feature stair-atrium, all while maintaining the original schedule.
A Reimagined Streetscape
Long before Vulcan and Facebook were primaries in this project, conceptual design began for the woonerf. Together with Graphite, Hewitt, and the City of Seattle, the team defined elements of the street makeover. Later, along with Vulcan, the team transformed the street into an unusual urban oasis. Vehicles traveling on 8th Avenue follow a minimized, angled roadway that slows their speed. A custom paving pattern visually links the buildings through the open space, establishing the campus connection. Expanded plazas at each end of the street feature verdant landscaping. Bioretention planters work in concert with the landscaping to filter stormwater runoff, and together with green roofs, contribute to the project’s Salmon-Safe certification.
Photography: Jeremy Bittermann / JBSA and (c) Lara Swimmer
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