707 Terry
Consisting of two, 33-story residential towers, 707 Terry is truly a one-of-a-kind residential tower located in Seattle. An enthusiastic fan of art and culture, the client, Westbank, is known for their use of artwork in their developments and 707 Terry is the exemplar of architecture being used to express the concept of “Gesamtkunstwerk” or total work of art.
In collaboration with the Frye Art Museum, located right across the street, the façade of the new towers are re-imagined as abstracted and enlarged gallery walls with perforated screens whose pattern is derived from the actual paintings within the museum. As residents slide the art screens outside their units, fragments of the art will dynamically reconfigure and, when properly arranged, wholly recreate the paintings on display.
A sky bridge connects the two leaning towers, allowing residents to traverse the void and connect the two amenity spaces located in each building. The ‘creative tension’ formed at the bridge will be further enhanced by the unparalleled views both to the Cascade and Olympic Mountain ranges as well as through the glass viewing portal in the floor to the Frye Museum below.
While analyzing the seismic impact at the bridge, it was discovered that movement between the two leaning towers would be approximately eight-feet. A structural solution was proposed that borrowed bridge technology and introduces tensile cables that crisscrossed the two towers together, reducing the seismic joint from eight-feet to six-inches and providing a secondary structural support for the bridge.
