Sound Transit’s University of Washington station, designed by LMN Architects, was one of five projects across the United States honored as part of the 2018 AIA Awards for Interior Architecture, with the jury panel taking note of the station’s art collaboration by Leo Saul Berk.
In a statement, the five-member jury panel called the project “an aesthetically inspiring jewel that doubles as fantastic public art,” adding, “they have made descending deep into the earth pleasant, full of light and color and visual texture.”
“Obviously it’s a fairly unusual project,” Mark Reddington, principal-in-charge on the project, told Curbed Seattle. “One of the things we’re most proud of about it is that it demonstrates the kind of things cities need to understand how to do to evolve to high-quality, 21st-century city.”
Reddington elaborated that five different public agencies collaborated on the project “around a shared vision,” with multiple stakeholders building “something we believe genuinely improves the public realm for our community.”
The train platform is 100 feet underground, accessible by elevator or layers of escalators. On the way down, eye-catching design elements curate the descent, like light fixtures that double as wayfinding elements, complementing wall treatments with green accents.
The Berk installation, “Subterraneum,” uses backlit panels to evoke the surrounding geology of the station, surrounding the space with glowing blue light—and doubling as a ventilation element.
“It’s actually a fairly pragmatic code required smoke chamber that’s part of the emergency smoke exhaust systems in a place like that,” said Reddington. “We were going to have to spend money on [it] anyway, and by collaborating with a public artist and making something really extraordinary about it, we were being very cost-conscious [and creating] a notable public experience.”
Doubling up on form and function made the project stand out to the AIA jury. “The station’s extensive mechanical systems are layered into the architecture, allowing design, artistic gestures, and daylight to take precedence,” read AIA’s award announcement.
The project opened to the public in 2016. When asked to reflect on the past year and a half the station’s been in operation, Reddington noted that that intersection went from what “had previously been kind of a messy, scattered experience at that street intersection to what now I think is a very cohesive one that works in many different ways,” creating multiple transfer points and opportunities to cross at- or above-grade, and blending into different public experiences whether it’s a commute day or game day at Husky Stadium.
“Beyond the specifics of the project—which again, I think is very interesting for all the things we’ve accomplished specifically—but the idea that this demonstrates the possibility for how cities can think about integrating the urban framework needs with many sources of funding and interest to create something greater than all the individual parts,” continued Reddington. “It’s something cities need to be striving to do, and it’s something we’re all going to need to do better in the future, so we’re excited about what this one has accomplished.”