Bellevue Plaza Towers represents the first major project to occupy the transition zone situated between the city center to the north, and the residential districts to the south. The mixed uses of residential and retail are accompanied by six levels of subterranean parking, and inhabit a city super block. The development takes advantage of its size and location by offering back to the city’s residents a series of lush, street-level public plazas. The program is organized into four separate towers, each with a living amenity level and 20 residential floors that provide a mix of medium income apartments, family housing, and penthouses.

The building forms derive from the inherent rules of post-tensioned concrete construction. Columns, organized to optimize parking, rise to the top of the towers and are wrapped by flat slabs. The retail levels are then shaped to allow passage, while the towers themselves are shifted, twisted, and manipulated to maximize view opportunities and access to sunlight for residents, plaza users, and the adjacent sites. The tower skin of aluminum and glass, extrudes vertically, wraps the slabs, and is pushed and punctuated by residential balconies, sunshades, and bursts of color. The forms engage the Northwest skies and sunsets in infinite ways, depending on point of view and time of day.

Rooted in the realm of engineering and given form by the particulars of site and environment, the towers express the inherent plasticity of their structure and offer a unique blend of inevitability, intent, and surprise.

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