When I was commissioned to photograph NBBJ’s Alley24 in Seattle, what immediately struck me was the way the project knitted together fragments of the city’s past with a vision for its future. The preserved shell of the Richmond Laundry Building anchors the development, yet the architecture is unapologetically forward-looking: sustainable systems, operable windows, deep courtyards, and LEED-certified interiors give form to a healthier, more humane way of living and working.
A new community was born here, corner coffee bars and informal seating areas, walkways perforating the site, and generous leafy streets establishing a relaxed and enticing new urban rhythm.
As a photographer, I wanted to capture more than material elegance. It was important to reveal the moments where sustainability becomes visible: the way daylight washes across a workspace, the shifting play of shadow from a brise-soleil, or how residents lean from operable windows to be apart of the wider city.
Alley24 is less about a single building than about the making of a neighbourhood, proof that density and sustainability can combine to create a vibrant sense of community at the heart of a growing city.
The RC Hedreen offices presented a different, yet equally compelling challenge.
Here, NBBJ crafted a setting that balances the precision of workplace design with the richness of cultural life. The art collection is extraordinary, works that might otherwise belong in a museum instead animate the daily rhythm of the office. Photographing the space meant framing not only the architecture, but the dialogue between art and environment: a sculpture held in natural light, a painting counterpointed by a quiet expanse of wall, the subtle orchestration of circulation that makes the collection feel seamlessly embedded in daily experience.
Both projects embody NBBJ’s forward-thinking ethos: that sustainability is not only an environmental metric but a cultural one. Alley24 demonstrates how green building can seed entire neighborhoods; RC Hedreen shows how a workplace can transcend function to become a civic space, a meeting ground of business, art, and community.
In creating these layered, confident, and immersive environments, NBBJ offers a textbook lesson in how design shapes more than form. It shapes atmosphere, spirit, and ultimately, the shared life of a community.
