Award of Merit – Residential/Hospitality: Spire Condominiums
Celebrating intelligent design and connectivity, this high-rise features modern amenities that include an automated valet system, a café, co-working spaces, fitness and movement studios, a theater and rooftop terraces. The project sits on a triangle-shaped lot with active streets on all three sides. One of the biggest design challenges centered on parking. The lot did not physically allow for traditional ramped below-grade parking. The solution was a fully automated parking system—the first of its kind in Seattle. This system parks 90 cars per hour and retrieves 60. The shape of the building led to a unique post-tension design within the elevated decks. The cables had various curvatures and were required to go through the boundary elements and into the elevator lobby slabs. Due to this, the required strength for stressing was higher than that of similar structures.