Changing Communities: A New Mixed-Use Model
The site, the heart of Belltown, is rich with existing social services and community gardens. The design intent for this conceptual project is to enhance these amenities in a vision of a future inspired by them.

The Millionair Club provides daily meals, laundry, job placement, and health services for the working poor and homeless. Eco-Laboratory incorporates a robust iteration of the organization’s space and programs, exploring temporary housing alongside market-rate units, alleviating the problem of homelessness by solving it instead of managing it.

The Belltown P-Patch represents a history of community activism that benefits the neighborhood beyond private development. Eco-Laboratory expands the P-Patch and brings growing spaces within the building, addressing the need for fresh food through cultivation, production, and sale at an on-site farmers market.

Changing Technologies: A Living Building Solution
Primary building systems in Eco-Laboratory are designed to meet the Living Building Challenge. Passive strategies, such as natural cooling and ventilation, are combined with active strategies, including biological wastewater treatment, photovoltaic panels, hydrogen fuel cell, and wind turbines. Water is harvested, conserved, managed and reused on site. Integrated systems balance production and consumption. Repurposed shipping containers form the living unit modules.