The Outdoor Plaza is an interpretation of the evolution of native shoreline to built urban environment. The plaza sits above King Street much like a bluff wall rising from one of Seattle’s shorelines. Using a collage of formliner surfaces, the façade wall is designed as an abstract of rising rock lifting out of a low beach. The lines and movement of the steel railings are taken from beach grasses found at the top of the bluff. As a visitor passes up the monumental stair into the plaza, the urban grid has been snapped as if it has been shaken and lifted into an imaginary, post-quake alignment. Passing through the plaza, the grid reassembles itself until, at the base of the building, it has recollected into an urban sidewalk grid. The plantings support the concept of passing from the beach to the bluff by providing an evergreen glade that gives way to a grid-conformed city edge.   Design/Construction Team: Jack Mackie Hewitt Architects KPFF Engineers NBBJ Lease Crutcher Lewis

For questions about the King Street Center Virtual Tour, please contact Beth Humphreys, Sustainable Development Team project manager. For questions about the Department of Natural Resources Web Site, please contact Fred Bentler, webmaster. Department of Natural Resources and Parks Updated: August 12, 2002

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