YAF Construction Tour: Acer House at 23rd & Cherry
Join the Young Architects Forum for a construction tour for Acer House project at 23rd & Cherry.
Join the Young Architects Forum for a construction tour for Acer House project at 23rd & Cherry. The design team will guide a tour through the active construction site to discuss the design process, outcomes and highlight key considerations for building.
Project Description: In collaboration with Donald King, Schemata Workshop is designing this mixed-use project as the City’s first “anti-racist private development”*. The building includes 117 units of affordable housing, locally-owned small retail shops, a Black-owned café/restaurant, and a childcare center. Located at 23rd and Cherry, a very prominent corner in Seattle’s diverse Central Area that hasn’t been gentrified, Acer House will incorporate Afrofuturist design principles and be a proper reflection of the community. Afrofuturism is a philosophy rooted in science and culture but also draws upon the African diaspora and history. The Afrocentric cultural aesthetic is most readily found in fashion, film, and pop culture to describe a future where Black people are fully present and thriving (think Black Panther).
The architectural concepts for massing, modulation, and cladding draw from African fractals, kente stoles, West African-painted mud buildings, and familial relationships. Afrofuturist principles are a rare sighting in the Pacific Northwest as most designs are designed in Africa or with African-like climates, not the wet climate found here. Besides climate, we are also applying these principles to a project type that is notoriously a balancing act between construction costs and associated rents. The resulting building offers open spaces to meet neighbors, interact intergenerationally, and connect to familiar nature, yet with an Afrocentric twist.
PPE REQUIRED: Please bring your own hard hat/vest, wear long sleeves/pants, and hard soled shoes. No tennis shoes allowed on the construction site.
