THE NET: A NEXT GENERATION HIGH RISE Justin Cochran - Senior Associate and Designer, NBBJ

The Net:

A Next Generation High Rise

Justin Cochran, Senior Associate, Designer at NBBJ

The three story roof garden is nestled into the articulated facade. Image courtesy of NBBJ

The fins flare at the street to accentuate the main entrance. Image courtesy of NBBJ A s our global population increases, high-rise buildings are essential to reduce society’s physical and environmental footprints. Yet as beneficial as these structures can be for planet health, tall towers often hinder human health. Their requirements for structural and mechanical systems make access to fresh air and outdoor landscapes difficult. Their verticality isolates inhabitants and reduce connectivity. Ironically, most tall buildings fall short. However, the Net—a next-generation tower in Seattle—challenges the typical high rise, serving as a model for a new generation of office buildings. By focusing on wellness, community and building performance, the project rethinks what a high-rise can be, from its innovative structure to the humancentered tenant experience. Designed to influence five pillars of wellness, The Net elevates emotional, physical, organizational, social, and environmental health. Each of these focus areas contribute to the unique structural expression, elegant massing, and articulated façade of this thirty-six floor high-rise at the corner of Third and Marion in downtown Seattle.

Expression Through Structure

At the heart of the Net’s design is a structural expression that reflects how the building performs. In traditional high-rise design, the core is the heart of the tower. Taking a prominent stance in the middle of the building and surrounded by concrete, the core often restricts users’ connectivity to daylight and each other while also limiting future adaptability. The Net, however, is designed using an offset core that increases visibility among tenants by 20 percent. By locating the bulk of core obstructions to the north end of the floor plate, the Net creates open, flexible floor plates that allow tenants to focus on how their organization works best.

Using an offset core, the Net required a structural solution that did not rely on the mass of a typical center core building. Steel brace frames wrap the building’s perimeter, establishing lateral bracing that maximizes structural efficiency while reducing steel tonnage. For most of the tower, the braces follow a repetitive four-floor module that optimizes resource use. Braces on the east and west façade tighten on the north where the core falls within the tower floor plate. As

The double height ground floor opens itself to the public. Image courtesy of NBBJ

the braces move to the south they expand in scale, allowing for views to West Seattle, Puget Sound and Mount Rainer. The north façade has the tightest grouping of braces on the tower, opening in the center to reveal a communicating stair rising all 36 floors. The structural braces are eliminated at the top of the tower, leaving unhindered views from the top.

As important as the bracing is for the stability of the tower, the design team worked hard to reduce the number of braces at the ground floor. Here, the structural expression emphasizes transparency and connectivity throughout to emphasize a commitment to social health. While buildings typically have a private office lobby with individual retail stores and heavy structural impact, the Net prioritizes community and connections to the city. The design allows the building to feature a ground floor that openly flows from the office lobby to a public retail market hall.

Elegant Massing

The Net’s massing is subtle in shape, yet makes for a unique expression within Seattle’s skyline. Just like the structural bracing, the 220 foot-long east and west facades have distinct massing moves. The east façade, which faces downtown, folds inwards to ease its presence against Third Avenue. This move is articulated by structural braces which change scale to tighten while adding a dynamic façade movement that is accentuated by a large notch at the building top. As the east façade pushes in to give relief to the city, the west façade pushes out, utilizing a 15-foot cantilever that offers diversity to the floor plate and a unique occupant experience. This cantilever is column-free, providing ultimate flexibility for tenant use. Moving to the south, the massing steps down and away from the city, providing incredible views to the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound. At the southeast corner, a two story chamfer softens the edge and provides additional distinction to the tower profile.

The Net sits at the south west end of downtown Seattle Image courtesy of NBBJ

Image courtesy of NBBJ

The level 36 executive lounge Image courtesy of NBBJ

The stepped massing creates an unparalleled experience at the top of the building. With the core moved to the side, the rooftop becomes a three-story exterior garden. Focusing on emotional health, the Net seamlessly directly connects users to the restorative benefits of nature without ever leaving the building. A series of berms feature luscious planting and trees, giving tenants areas to gather in large groups or find a moment of respite. The rooftop features amenities such as a 40’ tall executive lounge on level 36. Using double-stacked unitized curtainwall units, the executive lounge offers clear views to both downtown and the Olympic mountains. One level below, the Net features a fitness center that links exercise to commanding views from the natural setting of the terrace. This space reinforces an intent to create restorative spaces that enhance the emotional and physical health of occupants. A more secluded outdoor experience occurs on Level 34, where a smaller terrace and larger useable floor area create a natural location for C-suite activities. Tucked elegantly behind the 15-foot extended façade, all rooftop terraces are protected from high winds to maximize the days these amenities can be used throughout the year.

Detail of the fin articulation Image courtesy of NBBJ

Image courtesy of NBBJ

The three story roof garden is nestled into the articulated facade. Image courtesy of NBBJ

Ground floor market with grand staircase taking the public to second floor retail. Image courtesy of NBBJ

Image courtesy of NBBJ

Articulated Façade

Leveraging the innovative structural expression and elegant massing, the Net façade design emphasizes both. Oriented forty-five degrees off north, the building is ideally situated to utilize vertical fins. The fins not only add to the strong structural language of the building, but also create a five percent reduction in solar exposure. Within each of the bracing diamonds lies a series of aluminum fins that project and taper to reflect the elegant structural expression on the exterior of the building.

At the smallest projected dimensions, the fins stand a little more than three inches, serving as a fundamental building block of the design concept. The profile grows to twelve inches, developing a subtle curve that softens the façade across the entire building. The fin expression is repeated every four floors, finishing in a top and bottom of the tower that stress two distinct expressions. At the crown, the fins stretch away from the façade to a depth of two feet that slope with the massing to create variety. At the base, the expression takes a grander approach, meeting the street with a dramatic flare over the sidewalk that expands ten feet outward. This element not only creates a pronounced pedestrian experience but also becomes a welcoming shelter that meets the City of Seattle’s street use canopy requirement.

Under the deep projection, the fins support glass to provide a continuous covered walkway along 3rd Avenue that leads to an inviting main entrance. All the fins terminate at the base with a one-foot depth, providing scale and reinforcing the massing above. On the north end, the project features a solarium where the fins fold around, completing the expression to the ground.

With the fins high above the street, the Net opens itself to the public. The base of the project is clad in large glass panels, with the largest ten feet wide by 25 feet tall. This highly transparent glass is supported by laminated glass fins that support both the exterior wall and glass canopies. Unlike typical canopy systems that require beams that span from interior columns and cause unsightly sight lines behind the glass that disrupt views and access to daylight, this system eliminates the beam from the interior space. As a result, the all-glass podium creates a welcoming transparency, housing diverse ground floor amenities from a restaurant to a public market to an office work lounge located in the solarium. At the north and south ends, the ground floor is expressed as double height volumes. The north end complements the main entrance of the Net, where a 45-foot transparent façade reveals glass-enclosed elevator shafts, creating an open, inviting environment. The additional transparency works to dissolve the core to emphasize visibility to ground floor amenities. The solarium is located at the north, taking advantage of the softer northern light, while the south end becomes the main entrance to the public market hall. The Net’s holistic ground floor design provides an engaging retail experience that seamlessly extends to the second floor via a striking grand stair.

Through its massing, structural system, and articulated façade, The Net serves as a valuable precedent for how tall buildings can visually express their commitment to holistic health. This high-rise demonstrates the ultimate potential of design approaches that are wellness and community-centered design while showcasing opportunities for other high-rises in the future.

Project Team

Owner Urban Visions

Architect NBBJ

Structural Magnusson Klemencic Associates Landscape Site Workshop Façade Harmon, Sentech Architectural Systems Mechanical/ Plumbing Hermanson Company LLC Electrical Sequoyah Electric, LLC Contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis

Justin Cochran, Senior Associate, Designer at NBBJ

Justin designs world-class workplace, mixed-use and hospitality projects that advance client goals and benefit the greater community. A creative designer with an international portfolio, Justin is known for designing extraordinarily customized environments by keeping an organization’s culture and business drivers at the heart of any project. A versatile team leader and effective project manager, Justin has the organizational and technical aptitude to drive and deliver projects on a variety of scales, from design to construction phases. Over the past 17 years, his focus on budgetconscious solutions includes sustainable design and the use of materials that have yielded LEED Gold and Platinum facilities across North America.

Level 35 roof deck overlooking Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains. Image courtesy of NBBJ

In the first half of our Summer Edition, the authors, top authorities in glass, architectural design, and façade engineering, have emphasized the present agenda of our industry. It is clear that glass can no longer be considered a passive construction material. There are more demands being made on building envelopes and the businesses that design and construct them, including lowering energy use and carbon emissions and providing transparent security, comfort, and improving occupant well-being. These expectations are fueling an unprecedented wave of "responsible façade innovation," which is intrinsically related to concerns about global sustainability. The built environment is experiencing seismic innovations in technology, from the metaverse to the ingenuity highlighted in the future focused façade of the Museum of the Future and The Net, one thing is certain: we are just scratching the surface of what we thought was possible. In the second chapter of this edition, you will be privy to the technologies that are disrupting the industry and pushing the boundaries of glass façade and building design. Smart glass and Artificial Intelligence, dynamic liquid crystal glazing and sloping fire-resistant glass for the Bjarke Ingels Group designed Sluishuis are uncovered by industry experts in the pages to come. Last but by no means least, Dr Werner Jager has the “The Glass Word” where he gazes into the glass industry crystal ball to unearth the building envelopes of the future.

To come:

Bruce Nicol, eyrise

“To reduce emissions and embedded carbon, research efforts have been made to develop new materials and technologies into sustainable construction options”.

Page 92

Manoj Phatak, ArtRatio and Smart Glass World

“Our journey into adaptive, truly intelligent smart glass building facades, smart glass showcases and smart glass enabled transportation has just begun. We have merely scratched the surface”.

Page 120