The Discovery Park Retreat is located in a sprawling wilderness area overlooking Seattle’s Puget Sound. The site sits on the border between the park’s two primary conditions: to the east, a sprawling meadow; to the west, a dense wooded bluff. The building’s goals are twofold: to simultaneously link these natural worlds, while maintaining each one’s distinct ability to address public and private needs.
The resulting building is a pair of stacked, perpendicular elements. The upper linear element, visible and exposed, houses the social functions. This structure becomes an experiential bridge, emphasizing the voyage from open plain to dense forest through its porous façade. Two large gathering spaces -one opening onto open meadow, the other floating among the treetops– celebrate this polarity. The lower residential element, conversely, is sunken into the protected hillside, lending individuals a sense of sanctuary and refuge at the completion of each day’s events.
This act of bridging informs the tectonic structure as well, composed of a rigid steel frame clad in a glass and cedar envelope. As with the site itself, the cladding peels away to grant varying degrees of exposure to the public or private functions within.
