Pike Place MarketFront selected for 2019 AIA Regional & Urban Design Award

The Miller Hull Partnership, an international has received a 2019 AIA Institute Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design for Pike Place MarketFront from The American Institute of Architects (AIA). Completed in 2017, Pike Place MarketFront is first major addition to the iconic Pike Place Market in nearly 40 years. The new community space complements the culture and spirit of the original Market, catering to the present, but looking to the future as the gateway from the heart of downtown to the waterfront.

Soon, Pike Place MarketFront will connect directly to Overlook Walk, part of Seattle’s multi-phase waterfront revitalization plan that is currently in design. Pike Place MarketFront is located in a highly compact neighborhood, one that embodies true urbanism. Miller Hull’s design opens the city’s treasured landmark with grand public gathering space, framed by a contemporary lightness and transparency.

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Contextually inspired by the toughness of the Pacific Northwest, Pike Place MarketFront oozes simple, utilitarian character through its cast-in-place concrete and engineered timber base, capped by an open-air structural steel framed pavilion. Like the existing Market, Pike Place MarketFront is an active public space built to serve the surrounding community and the nearly 40,000 people from across the world who visit the area each day.

An extension of the existing neighborhood, the project added 50 vendor stalls, public restrooms, 40 low-income and senior housing units and retail/office space. This programmatic complexity and prominence within the Seattle community demanded deep involvement from a wide range of stakeholders, including the merchants who would be using the space. Like the existing Pike Place Market, Pike Place MarketFront is an active public space built for the community.

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The highly compact, complete urban neighborhood of the Market exhibits the informal, diverse and vital compactness of true urbanism—buildings of varying age are humanly scaled, its streets are dominated by pedestrians, not cars, regional and local fish, fruits and produce are abundant and small owner-operated businesses are the rule, not the exception. Pike Place MarketFront’s programmatic complexity and prominence within the Seattle community demanded deep involvement from a wide range of stakeholders, including the Market’s day-stall merchants and the PDA Council.

With the urban design framework for the waterfront in place, the MarketFront project was challenged to develop a rich range of pathways and experiences that engage the public in the immediate local environment, while ultimately linking to the future shoreline promenade on the waterfront. The design team’s vision was to open the city’s treasured landmark with grand public gathering space framed by a contemporary lightness and transparency.

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The team found contextual inspiration in the character of Pike Place Market’s simple utilitarian character, as well as in the concrete post and beam structures and heavy timber elements commonly found throughout the existing Market. An extension of the neighborhood, Pike Place MarketFront is inspired by the existing district, adding 50 vendor stalls, 40 low-income and senior apartments, commercial, retail and office space, public restrooms and 300 underground parking spaces.

Pike Place MarketFront has a strong Pacific Northwest toughness, employing cast-in-place concrete in combination with engineered timber for the project’s base, capped by an open-air structural steel framed pavilion. Railings, canopies and lighting fixtures are in galvanized steel. Large expanses of glazing utilize aluminum curtainwall with glue-laminated mullions to resist heavy wind loads and underscore the industrial feel. Source by Miller Hull Design.

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• Location: Seattle, USA
• Architect: Miller Hull
• Partner-in-Charge: Sian Roberts
• Design Leads: David Miller and Brian Court
• Project Managers: Wojtek Szczerba and Steve Doub
• Specifications: Steve Doub
• Project Team: Becky Roberts, Peipei Sun, Sean Waldron, Eugene Lau, Casey Riske, Ryan Drake, Cory Mattheis, Rohit Eustace, Grace Leong, David Cinamon, Janet Bean, Ryan Rideout
• Civil/Structural Engineer: Magnusson Klemencic Associates
• Structural Engineer: Magnusson Klemencic Associates
• MEP Engineer: ARUP
• Landscape: Berger Partnership
• Lighting: dark | light design
• Acoustical Engineer: Greenbusch Group, Inc.
• Building Envelope Consultant: Wetherholt and Associates
• Door Hardware Consultant: Adams Consulting and Estimating
• Elevator Consultant: Elevator Consulting Services
• ADA Consultant: Karen Braitmayer
• Code Consultant: Tom Kinsman
• Archaeological Services: ESA Associates
• Wayfinding: RMB Vivid
• Traffic Consultant: Heffron Transportation
• General Contractor: Sellen Construction
• Year: 2017
• Photographs: Mat Albores, Lara Swimmer, Vlanka Catalan, Navid Baraty, Peipei Sun, Miller Hull, Courtesy of Cameron Macallister Group

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