Pacific Northwest Aquarium, Seattle
1999-ongoing

Bounded on the west by Puget Sound's Elliott Bay, downtown Seattle is a strip occupying 945 hectares that slopes east–west towards the seafront. The 40,000 square metre masterplan site is on the coast near the centre point of Elliott Bay with direct access to the city's commercial core. It overlooks an expanse of open waterfront dotted with piers, warehouses and a railway – remnants of the city's industrial past.

Original proposals to provide a waterfront park were amended following local consultation to utilise existing historic piers.

The designs were inspired by the natural beauty of Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula. The 15,000 square metre oceanographic discovery centre (a 'floating island') forms the core of TFP's masterplan. The challenge is to transform this area into a regional park with improved public access to the water, open space for general use, special events and viewing areas. The intention is for the aquarium to respond to its programme and location. The building's rich roofscape comprises a panoramic environment of tidal pools and water gardens fundamental to the perception of the building as viewed from above, where its watery setting merges with Puget Sound. This landscape is split open, shell-like, to reveal open-air exhibits in rock pools sculpted into a series of terraces that descend to the level of the bay, initiating a dialogue between the natural world and the interpretative world of the exhibits. Reflecting Seattle's topography, which is half land and half water, the building's form is at once part of the cityscape and of the waterfront.

Seattle is defined by three systems: the ecology linking mountains to the sea; the historic system of real estate that generates Seattle's characteristic grid and the port and rail processes that underpin the pier configurations along the waterfront. The concept for the Pacific Northwest Aquarium is a response to these three systems. The overall regeneration of the city reflects the need to preserve the best of the old alongside the new as part of the city's modern day story.