We at Hammer & Hand are happy to announce that our Seattle office is moving to the Bullitt Center, the recently-opened Living Building Challenge project on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.  We started moving boxes this afternoon.

The Bullitt Center, new home to Hammer & Hand’s Seattle office (photos by Hammer & Hand)

Described as “the greenest commercial building in the world,” the Bullitt Center has become an instant paragon of green building, garnering international attention for its scope and ambition. See this video about the building by Fast Company:

Designed by the Miller Hull Partnership and built by Schuchart, the project delivers on the Living Building Challenge requirements for net zero energy, net zero water, 100% waste water treatment onsite (read, composting toilets), nontoxic materials, and a host of other deep green goals…

… at least we all think the building delivers on those requirements.  A key piece of the Living Building Challenge is the monitoring of actual building performance and occupant behavior.  So this first year of operation at the Bullitt Center is critical in determining whether the project truly “hits the mark.”  Every electrical plug is metered, every gallon of water accounted for.  Building occupants (like us) are key players in the success of Living Building Challenge projects.  And I’m sure we’ll have some stories to share along the way about the experience of working in a Living Building.  (The composting toilets, by the way, are pretty cool.  No odor.  Though a bit breezy.)

15 Avenue entrance.  Green stormwater capture and treatment.

Sometimes referred to as the “moon shot” of green building, the Living Building Challenge’s requirements are grouped into seven demanding “petals”: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity, and Beauty.  Check them out at the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge page.

As Passive House practitioners, we see Passive House and Living Building Challenge as inherently complementary certifications.  The Living Building Challenge’s energy petal requires net zero energy use, and the design simplicity of Passive House provides the most direct path to reach that goal.  (Step One, build a superinsulated, airtight building with heat recovery ventilation to drive energy loads very low.  Step Two, add a modest amount of renewable energy.  And…voila!  Net zero energy.)  Furthermore, because Passive House emphasizes design elegance over gadgetry, it is well-suited to achieving Living Building Challenge’s energy petal in a way that doesn’t interfere with the other petals.  In a certification environment as demanding as the Living Building Challenge, the economy of means provided by Passive House is very helpful.

Living Building Challenge, in turn, provides a rich, holistic approach to green building that complements Passive House’s laser-like focus on energy performance.  While Passive House is great at addressing greenhouse emissions and building durability, it intentionally puts blinders on to many other “green issues.”  The Living Building Challenge tackles it all.

Hammer & Hand’s Daniel Thomas examines plans with building representatives.

The Bullitt Center is located on 15th Avenue and East Madison Street on Capitol Hill.  Our space will be Suite 250, located on the second floor (which becomes the ground floor along Madison.)  Nancy Burfiend of NB Design Group is the interior designer and Steve Doub of the Miller Hull Partnership is the architect for our TI (tenant improvement) of the space.  As work progresses over the next couple of months we’ll use temporary desk space on the fourth floor.

H&H Project Administrator Suzanne DuBois unpacks first boxes on fourth floor.

We’re very excited, and look forward to sharing more with you soon!

– Zack

The team plans build-out of the Hammer & Hand office at the Bullitt Center.

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The carpet is in and the paint has dried – it’s time to show off our new Seattle office! We’re all moved into our office in the Bullitt Center and we’d love to invite you to come visit our space, enjoy some refreshments, and get a look at the perFORM 2014 house design competition finalists!

Join us at the Bullitt Center on Wednesday, April 9, 2014 from 4 – 7pm. There is limited parking in the area so we suggest walking, taking public transportation, or carpooling.

We’ll see you there!

P.S. Address is 1501 E Madison Street, #250. Please come through the Madison entrance (buzz in by selecting “Hammer & Hand” on the screen or punching in “0026” and hitting the call button).

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Architecture guided by the form of a leaf.  Design concepts inspired by a rechargeable battery.  A chronometer as a building metaphor.  The house understood as an expression of the Greek principle of Estia. This is a sampling of the ideas and creativity embodied in the wave of design submissions we received from architecture students and interns yesterday.  The group is competing in perFORM 2014, a competition created to demonstrate that high design and high performance building can be a dynamic duo.

Our feeling is that, rather than hindering high design, high performance building may become high design’s lifeline in coming decades.  As the imperative for more and more efficient buildings increases this century, designers will need tools to navigate those waters while also achieving their programmatic and aesthetic goals.  Advanced building science and accurate energy modeling provide those tools.

perFORM contestants employed a spreadsheet-based energy performance verification tool designed for the competition to approximate the kind of energy modeling that goes into high performance structures. Several participants supplemented this tool with other, real world tools to make the case for the performance of their designs.

Designs will now go to the perFORM jury and be judged on how “resourceful, replicable, and beautiful” they are.

We’ll unveil winners on Earth Day (April 22) at our Seattle office in the Bullitt Center.  Stay tuned!
– Zack (Connect with me at +ZacharySemke)

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Hammer & Hand hosted an opening party to celebrate the new office build-out at the Bullitt Center in Seattle. Attendees enjoyed light refreshments, champagne, and the musical stylings of H&H’s Aaron Bergeson, who came up from the Portland office to DJ the event.

One of the big attractions at the event were the five perFORM 2014 finalists (winners will be announced Earth Day, April 22).

H&H Co-Owner Sam Hagerman came up from Portland for the party.

Our project photo wall was a popular spot during the event. Photos of past projects (and our logo!) are magnetically attached to beams running the length of the wall.

We had a great time at the event – thank you to everyone who attended!

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Today we’re excited to unveil, in honor of Earth Day, the winners of our perFORM 2014 design competition!  perFORM challenged emerging architecture professionals to fuse high design with high performance building in the design of a single-family house in Seattle that achieves Passive House-like levels of energy performance while being resourceful, replicable, and beautiful.

First Place Winner
Cameron Huber, architectural student at the University of Oregon, won the $2000 first place award for his entry, entitled “HO[MIN]ID.”  Cameron’s design impressed the jury with its restraint, purity of form, friendliness to neighborhood context, and understanding of energy performance within a holistic approach to sustainability.

Runners-Up
The perFORM 2014 jury awarded four runners-up $1000 each in recognition of the quality of their work:
• Andrew Schenk, student at Ball State University
• Steve Clark, student at Montana State University
• Jacob Dunn, student at University of Idaho Integrated Design Lab
• Samuel Kraft, architectural intern at Seek Architecture

The Jury
The perFORM 2014 jury was made up of noted architects, educators, and builders from Seattle and Portland, including:
• Daniel Friedman, University of Washington College of Built Environments
• Jim Graham, Graham Baba Architects
• Sam Hagerman, Hammer & Hand
• Gladys Ly-Au Young, Sundberg Kennedy Ly-Au Young Architects
• Robert Peña (perFORM Advisor), University of Washington Integrated Design Lab
• Cory Hawbecker, Holst Architecture

A full display of the winning entrants’ 24×36 design boards are on exhibit for several weeks at Hammer & Hand’s Bullitt Center office at 1501 E Madison Street #250, Seattle, WA, 98122.

Congratulations to all the participants of perFORM for their excellent work.

– Zack (Connect with me at +ZacharySemke)

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Located at the corner of Rainier Avenue and Findlay Street, Big Chickie will be a quick-service neighborhood eatery specializing in pollo a la brasa, Peruvian-style charcoal rotisserie chicken. Named in honor of Matt’s busy mom and the pollo a la brasa takeout his family loved growing up, the new restaurant will open this summer.

The last few years have brought exciting new development to Hillman City, which has struggled to attract development in the shadow of its popular/well-known neighbor Columbia City. Big Chickie promises to add a jolt of momentum to that development, and we’re honored to be part of the effort. The site, a former service station that served the neighborhood for years, is a central and highly visible one, with thousands of passersby every day. So its revitalization will have both practical and symbolic impact.

Pergola construction at our restaurant build-out of Big Chickie.

Big Chickie has considerable momentum already, earning a nice article in last week’s Seattle Met, a mention in Eater, and several hundred followers on its recently-launched Facebook page.

We’ll keep you posted on progress and look forward to sharing stories about the collective effort and talents going into this project of transformation.

– Zack

Team members Eli Semke (lead carpenter) and Suzanne DuBois (project administrator) review plans.

Construction of the interior of Big Chickie is underway.

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When the owners of a Pike Place Market condo came back from a trip to Europe to see how their condo remodel was coming along, they were surprised to see that it wasn’t at all what they had expected. “They came back to a mess. They lost two months of time,” said interior designer Faith Sheridan.

That’s when the clients parted ways with their previous contractor and reached out to Hammer & Hand to fix the situation.  We contacted Faith Sheridan to join the endeavor, and then set to work.  It was near Thanksgiving and the clients wanted to be moved in by early February. “It was a very quick turnaround for what they wanted to do,” said Faith.

One of the areas of the condo that required the most work was the kitchen. The clients wanted to update their cabinets but keep their existing appliances. “The previous contractor created a disaster and the appliances would not fit into the cabinetry,” said Faith.

“Drawers didn’t open or they bumped into each other,” agreed H&H project administrator Suzanne DuBois. “It was literally a non-functioning kitchen.”

The team drew out a new design for the kitchen which included customized storage and extended cabinets on the back wall, all done in a custom soft gray stain finish by Vision Woodworks.

Faith chose a graphic Ann Sacks backsplash tile called Selvaggio to add interest to the space. Silestone countertops, a special request from the clients, were selected in Alpina White.

The clients knew of a woman in Juneau, Alaska (where they own another home) who finds and polishes stones to turn them into hardware. They used these for the cabinets in the kitchen and closet doors in the den. “It was a very personal solution that was meaningful to them,” said Faith.

“They wanted the condo to also have a place where their children and grandchildren could come and stay if they were there for a weekend,” said Faith. “A lot of function needed to be designed into a very small space.”

The clients purchased a sleeper sofa and sliding doors were installed to provide privacy in that room when they have guests.


Another area that needed to be updated in order to be functional for the clients was the bedroom. Faith suggested California Closets to maximize storage potential in the small space.

The team made a walk-in closet (which also functioned as a walkway into the master bathroom) more functional by installing cabinets with mirrored surfaces and space for smaller items like jewelry and accessories.

H&H installed a sliding pocket door to the bathroom to further optimize the use of space.

Mirrored doors open to show storage space for shoes, towels, and other smaller items.

A small bathroom off of the bedroom provided additional challenges. “We spent a lot of time trying to make that bathroom work in terms of lighting,” said Faith. “There’s no natural light and it’s not a big space.” The solution was to install side light sconces onto the mirrors which provided good light for applying makeup.

Now the clients can enjoy their view of Pike Place Market from the comfort of their beautiful (and functional!) downtown Seattle condo.

P.S. Read more about Faith’s finish choices over at her blog.

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As we wrote here a couple weeks ago, Big Chickie will be a quick service restaurant specializing in Peruvian BBQ chicken. The brainchild of Seattle restaurateur Matt Stubbs, the new restaurant will occupy a prominent lot at the corner of Rainier Avenue and Findlay Street.

The site is the former home of Rudy Hansen’s service station, which served the Hillman City community for over 40 years. To honor their dad’s work, Rudy’s kids decided to continue his legacy of service by revitalizing the parcel. They invested over the past decade in environmental clean up of the land, with City guidance, and then offered the site for lease – with the stipulation that their father’s original building be retained.

That’s when Matt entered the picture. With help from a loan by the Rainier Valley Community Development Fund, Matt signed a lease and set to work executing his business plan. He retained the Portland-based firm, Architecture Building Culture, to design the restaurant renovation, and Hammer & Hand to build it.

With funding and construction plan in place, the business side of the Big Chickie project is set. But Matt’s effort has always been about community impact as well. A revitalized, neighborhood-serving business in the heart of Hillman City will help propel the area’s renaissance. And to amplify that effect on the neighborhood, Matt is also launching a crowdfunding campaign to fund major landscape improvements to the site – transforming a sea of asphalt into an urbane garden/gathering space.

It’s one of those projects: a great vision, followed by a lot of dedication, hard work and talents from lots of people to make it happen.

We at Hammer & Hand have been proud to play a role in the effort. And in speaking with Hammer & Hand lead carpenter Eli Semke (my brother, by the by), the construction of the restaurant build-out has entailed its own dose of dedication and talent – something to be expected when retrofitting a modest commercial structure built in the 50s.

Because the building is considerably out-of-square, the first challenge for Eli and team was to make interior framing square inside the context of the existing cattywampus exterior framing. To accomplish this required a dual approach: in places we notched the new wood framing into the existing steel framing, in others we held the new framing off of the existing. The result is a happy return to 90-degree angles.

To accommodate the extensive plumbing that is part and parcel in restaurant construction, the team retrofitted the building’s existing slab to accommodate floor sinks as well as supply and waste lines for various restaurant systems. We cut out a large section of the old slab to allow the plumber to do his work, and then poured a new slab on top.

The project also involved some engineering adventures midstream, as once we opened up walls we discovered they didn’t entirely mesh with old drawings. To shore up the building structurally the crew fastened the existing roof and roof joists to new 2×10 framing members, both to bear the weight of new heavy equipment and to provide lateral stability. A painstaking but critical process.

But the team has relished any hurdles along the way. And the emotional pay back for the work has already begun.

“One guy who’s lived in Hillman City for 30 years stops by weekly and chats with me,” Eli said. “He’s really happy to see something happening with this property. The gas station has been sitting here vacant for over 20 years. We’ve had lots of really positive feedback from the community, which feels good.”

And more’s to come.

“Matt’s plans for planting are really nice,” Eli added. “It’s just a big asphalt lot now, so it can use it. The planting strips and landscaping will make a big impact.”

Want to support this “green” investment? Check out Big Chickie’s crowdfunding campaign here.

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The kitchen had a good layout, but the countertops and flooring made the space feel unwelcoming.

“The cabinets had been remodeled 12-15 years ago and the layout didn’t really need to be improved,” said Swanson. “But the existing concrete countertops were really dark paired with the dark flooring.”

Before photos courtesy of Eric Swanson

The team took out the chunky concrete countertops and replaced them with a brighter, more contemporary honed Carrara marble countertop. They also replaced the existing tile with a beveled white Neri tile backsplash and took out the cabinets above the sink to let more light in. A Carrara marble tile backsplash above the stove added a more traditional element to the modern design choices.

“The backsplash bridges the gap between the new contemporary countertop and more traditional existing cabinets,” said H&H Project Supervisor Aaron Stevens.

Photography by Will Austin

The guest bathroom was another space that needed some brighter finishes.

The team kept the footprint the same but added a deep soaking tub and replaced the sink vanity to open the space up visually. Margaux Kohler lighting fixtures in polished nickel brighten the guest bathroom while maintaining the home’s traditional style. Swanson replaced the dark shower and backsplash tile with the same white tile used in the kitchen.

While the kitchen and guest bathroom received much-needed updates, it was the master bathroom that became the jewel of this remodeling project. The existing bathroom was a small, dark, cramped space in a corner of the house.

“It was like a train compartment bathroom it was so small,” said Swanson. “There were three doors in that bathroom – a door to the toilet room, a door to the shower, and a sliding door to enter the bathroom. It was just so claustrophobic.”

The team gutted the existing space, removing a wall and two small closets to almost double the size of the bathroom.

Hammer & Hand Lead Carpenter Jesse Bacon went above and beyond to make the most of the space.

“He saw there was an opportunity to get more light in the bathroom by changing the angle of the roofline. He just took took it back a little more so you can see more light when you walk in,” said Swanson.

Jesse also beefed up the sliding pocket door that serves as the entrance to the master bathroom. “He fixed it so it wouldn’t jiggle and added a soft close to it. He didn’t have to point those things out but he did,” continued Swanson. “He saw the problems and gave solutions for what we could do.”

Swanson chose white tile, a white ceiling plane, marble, and ceiling lights and sconces to create a bright and open space.

“Now it’s a place you want to be in instead of just showering and getting out of there,” said Swanson.

Swanson chose to use a variety of tile to give the space a bright but traditional feel. The herringbone pattern floor tile, Wood Essence in Silver Field by Pental, has the look of wood flooring and ties in with the master bedroom’s carpet. Honed Carrara subway tile gives a classic look to the walls.

“We needed some traditional elements so we got decorative 3 x 12 tile for the back that tied in with the showerpan,” said Swanson. “This detail gives the eye something to land on.”

For more photos of this kitchen and bathroom remodeling project, check out the portfolio.

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To honor their dad’s work, Rudy’s kids decided to continue his legacy of service by revitalizing the parcel. They invested over the past decade in environmental clean up of the land (including the removal of the gas pump station and overhang pictured below), with City guidance, and then offered the site for lease – with the stipulation that their father’s original building be retained.

Hammer & Hand and architecture firm Architecture Building Culture took on the challenge.

Site of Big Chickie before construction. Photo via Google Images.

A lot needed to change to convert the old service station into a neighborhood eatery, but a lot needed to stay the same to adhere to the owners’ wishes to maintain their dad’s building.

“We gutted the service station’s interior but maintained the architectural language of the building,” said H&H Project Manager Carrie Erickson.

Outside the building is where the most eye-catching work took place. H&H built a long covered cedar seating area for diners. “We added the outdoor seating and new parking area to create a restaurant, but it’s also kind of a front door to the Hillman City neighborhood,” said Carrie. Instead of changing the look of the structure with new paint colors, the team freshened up the exterior in the same cream and blue colors.

Photos by Jeffrey Tan

H&H removed the existing barred windows and tight entrance and replaced it with a more open storefront system. The garage doors were cleaned up but left as part of the building — another homage to Rudy Hansen’s service station.

A restaurant has a different list of needs than a service station, however, so the team worked with the City of Seattle to make the necessary updates and upgrades. H&H got the structure up to code and updated it with a new commercial kitchen, new bathrooms, electrical, plumbing, and insulation. The new commercial kitchen includes two charcoal rotisseries imported from Peru. To give the interior a Pacific Northwest feel — and match the outside eating area — the team clad the interior walls with cedar panels.

Some of the changes to the property aren’t as noticeable, but were crucial to creating an accessible neighborhood restaurant. H&H worked with the City to redo the curb cuts to allow for the adjusted layout of the property and to fix ones that had fallen into disrepair. The team also worked to get commercial grade mechanical rooftop units that would fit into the neighborhood and hide the noise of the roof’s exhaust fan.

We’re proud to have been part of this transformative project and can’t wait until Big Chickie opens its doors in September.

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