[This is part of our ongoing New Year’s Resolution to reacquaint ourselves with Seattle’s great icons. If you haven’t already done so, download the calendar and join in the conversation. Check out last month’s look at The Fremont Troll, and come back again in May for insight into Pioneer Square’s U.S. Rubber Building.]

Salmon Waves, created by artist Paul Sorey, was installed at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks near the entrance to the window to the fish ladder in 2001. It is designed to honor the man-made stair that enables the annual journey of salmon from salty to fresh waters for spawning. Not only do the waves seem to have the same ominous weight a salmon might perceive of the upstream current, but in the same spirit, have a joyful, playful mood depending on the angle and light. In addition to the morphing form, the sculpture changes at night. integrated into each wave is a single row of flashing LED lights intended to create the illusion of swimming smolt, or juvenile salmon, as they complete the cycle from the freshwater of Lake Washington to the saltwater of Puget Sound.
According to Seattle Public Utilities, “these lights, with their brief cycle and delicate glow, reflect the fleeting and transitory nature of not only the actual movement of the salmon but also the fragile ecological balance in which the fish live. This highlights the importance of the structural improvements made to the locks in safeguarding a key part of the Northwest ecosystem.”

The location at the Locks, the nod to the annual cycle of our native salmon, and the interactive/morphing component of the sculpture puts this on our short-list of definitive Seattle Landmarks.

[This is part of our ongoing New Year’s Resolution to reacquaint ourselves with Seattle’s great icons. If you haven’t already done so, download the calendar and join in the conversation. Check out last month’s look at The Pink Elephant Sign, and come back in later in April for a fresh look at the Salmon Waves over at the Ballard Locks.]

In 1989, the Fremont Arts Council held a national competition for imaginative solutions to neglected space under George Washington Bridge, more commonly known as the Aurora Bridge. The Jersey Devil team, consisting of four local artists: Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter, and Ross Whitehead, won by a landslide in the final vote with a concept that would come to transform the space under the Aurora bridge from a place of makeshift campsites, drugs and vandalism into a destination for wholesome family-centered discovery, The Fremont Troll.

Their concept for the sculpture, partially inspired by the Scandinavian tale “Three Billy-Goats Gruff,” also stands as an allegorical story for Seattle’s creative and spontaneous approach to problem solving. The Troll resides at the end of what is known as the Hall of Giants, cascading bridge support columns along Troll Avenue. The permanent larger-than-life troll doesn’t try to hide the location’s cave-like appearance – it calls attention to it – through playful storytelling and interactive scale. The 18-foot tall, 6.5-ton, concrete creature, complete with a real VW Bug in it’s grasp makes a visitor feel small and acts as invitation to crawl on it, pick it’s nose and look directly into it’s glaring eye, a VW hub cap. Oddly enough, the massive creature often can be difficult to find, building the sense of mystery and appeal.

Although it’s home is obscure, the Troll sees thousands of visitors each year and continues to be a must-see landmark in Seattle. The once dead space is activated, increasing public ownership of the formerly undervalued space. The enigmatic creature lures visitors in to play and photograph, leaving them with an affectionate connection and a changed perspective of what the cavity under a bridge can become.

Studio SC helped Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood become a bit more artsy, thanks to newly installed art screens on St. Joseph’s Medical Center’s new parking garage. The garage needed screens on the street-facing side for security reasons, and the hospital saw this as an opportunity to creatively connect with its community—an idea that we’re always on board for.

We worked with Dri-Design, a fabricator out of Michigan, to create a series of aluminum panels featuring images of community members, past and present. These images are produced by a variation in perforated hole sizes—creating what is perceived as a half-tone image.

The art screen is two stories tall and spans the length of the 300-foot parking garage, so there were some functional criteria to consider. For example, we knew the garage had a 20% ventilation code requirement and that Dri-Design’s machinery allowed them to create holes in seven different sizes, ranging from 1/8 inch to 1/2 inch. With that in mind, we worked to determine the hole sizes that would not only make each image legible—whether it was lit from the front during the day or from inside the garage at night—but also meet the ventilation requirements. The end result is a beautiful reflection of the century-long bond between the hospital and its community.

[This is part of our ongoing New Year’s Resolution to reacquaint ourselves with Seattle’s great icons. If you haven’t already done so, download the calendar and join in the conversation. Check out last month’s look at Federal Center South, and come back in March for a peek under the bridge at the Fremont Troll.]

Sometimes seeing a pink elephant twirling in the sky makes you question your mental state—but not in Seattle. The larger-than-life pink Elephant Car Wash sign on the corner of Denny Avenue and Battery Street is loved by locals and tourists alike (rumor has it Elvis Presley visited while he was filming It Happened at the World’s Fair in 1963), making it a tried and true Seattle icon.

The Elephant Car Wash, which opened in 1951, was the first automatic car wash in Washington. In 1956, the owners added a second location, complete with rotating neon sign—meaning this bad boy pre-dates the Space Needle, which was built for the 1962 World’s Fair. To design the roadside beacon, the owners turned to Campbell Neon, and a designer named Beatrice “Bea” Haverfield. Comprised of bent neon and 380 blinking lights, the pink elephant is accompanied by four smaller elephants meant to represent Haverfield’s four children, says her grandson, Eli Wolff. According to Wolff and his mother Kathleen, the pink elephant is just one of Haverfield’s iconic signs—her others include the Ivar’s sign on the waterfront, the sign at the Cinerama movie theater in Belltown, and the Hat and Boots gas station in Georgetown (our September icon! More on that this fall).

Love for the pink elephant sign has been channeled in many different ways: New Year’s cards, necklaces, beautiful art prints, nearly 800 photos on Flickr, and it even appeared on one of Starbucks’ commemorative Seattle mugs, beating out every other icon in the city. It has also been named one of the 10 Best Neon Signs in the USA by Frommer’s Travel Guides. We think it’s pretty clear that, in Seattle at least, people don’t mind seeing pink elephants from time to time. 

[January marks the first installment in our New Year’s Resolution to reacquaint ourselves with Seattle’s great icons. If you haven’t already done so, download the calendar and join in the conversation. And check back in February for a fresh look at the Pink Elephant Car Wash Sign.]

You may wonder why the new Federal Center South Building 1202 is listed among our top Seattle icons. As the new home to the US Army Corps of Engineers, it’s not a building the public will interact with much at all—most people will only see a silver glimmer on the right as they head south on East Marginal Way. So what makes this a city icon? 

As part of the project team creating this new highly efficient building on the banks of the Duwamish River, we’ve learned a lot about the history of the region. Not only of the USACE’s involvement in reshaping the river, but also the impact of the river on the city of Seattle—and in turn the affect of the city on the river. And it’s this storied past coupled with the USACE’s forward-focus that make this more than just an office building, but an iconic monument to the Duwamish River’s past.

A century ago, the USACE had just begun rerouting the Duwamish River—in fact, the land upon which Building 1202 sits used to be encircled by a winding portion of the river, called an oxbow. The USACE converted a nine-mile section of the river, which included the oxbow, into a straight, four-and-a-half-mile course. Once the river was easier to navigate, industry and commerce spread into the area, particularly manufacturing and industrial companies.  The Federal Center South complex itself was part of this development, housing both Ford and Boeing assembly plants over the course of 40 years.

But all of the success facilitated by the river came with consequences. In 2001, the EPA declared the heavily polluted Lower Duwamish Waterway a Superfund site, and the USACE’s cleanup effort is only just beginning. This is well within the Corps’ wheelhouse: Their 21^st-century mission is to employ sustainable solutions to develop and maintain the nation’s waterways.

The new Building 1202 pays homage to the Duwamish’s history. The form of the building alludes to the original oxbow and the shimmering exterior reflects the surrounding environment. Although most people won’t experience the building as more than a momentary glimmer on East Marginal Way, we view it as a reminder of the river that helped build Seattle and of the city’s efforts to restore it. 

Happy Holidays!

This year, our New Year’s resolution is to rediscover Seattle’s unique environment through its iconic landmarks. We’ll be exploring anecdotes of the chosen icons each month—but we can’t do it without you! Check back here and on Facebook throughout the year to add your voice to the conversation.

To get us started, we created this pin-up calendar of our favorite Seattle monuments for you. We hope it helps you navigate the year and uncover new perspectives of this northwestern gem we call home.

Best wishes from all of us,

Mark, Billy, Faith, Cynthia, Cory & Sara

When St. Joseph’s Hospital built a new eight-story, block-long parking garage, it knew the garage would have a visual impact on the surrounding community, a tight-knit Tacoma neighborhood populated by single-story homes. To soften the impact and connect the hospital to the community it’s been a part of since 1891, Studio SC is creating a 300-foot-wide, two-story art screen on the street-facing wall, featuring photographs of actual community members.

Assisted by a community council, we gathered photographs that reflect the community’s diverse makeup and history—neighborhood children, current community leaders, nurses who’ve worked at the hospital, and more. Half-tone images on perforated aluminum panels are accented with splashes of color, brightening up the street. Images of the Tacoma neighborhood provide context for the photographs and reflect the warmth of the community, while the geometric design alludes to the rooftops of the homes that make up this residential community. 

For researchers working in the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s new 1100 Eastlake Building, microscopic interactions between vaccines and blood cells is a daily sight. And now, thanks to the new signage program we designed for the building, everyone can get a glimpse of this cellular activity—no microscope required.

As a nonprofit research organization, FHCRC works to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer and related diseases. Researchers working in the 1100 Eastlake Building study vaccines and infectious diseases, which inspired us to design an environmental graphics program that simulates the act of looking through a microscope at cells on a slide.

To bring to life our artistic representation of cellular disease-fighting activity, we designed multi-layer acrylic signs with direct-print graphic patterns on both surfaces. When you look at the signs, you can see the second surface graphic through the transparent pattern on the first surface (like on the image above), and that combined pattern mimics the way vaccines merge into different cell shapes when attacking viruses.

First and second surface artwork varies on each room sign, signifying the ever-changing formation of cells and viruses. Large-scale vinyl film applications with similar dot patterns also appear on glass doors and walls of conference rooms throughout the space.

Installation is underway and should be completed by the end of the month. 

Students are back in the classroom for a new school year, and those at few Puget Sound schools have returned to buildings with integrated graphics programs designed by Studio SC. In partnership with BLRB Architects, we created graphics that enhance the learning environments, giving each school a reinvigorated space that is more user-friendly and efficient.

Baker Middle School in Tacoma, which opened in January, features a series of two-story graphics calling out key areas of the school. Large illustrations of a maritime ship and a locomotive—two passions of the school’s namesake, John S. Baker—identify the main hallways. Additional large-scale graphics appear throughout the building, calling out important locations and drawing the program together. 

The environmental graphics at newly renovated Maple Lawn Elementary in Sumner, promote continual growth through education. The graphics program begins in the plaza, where circular stamped graphics inset in the ground encourage students to grow, explore, and cultivate their future. Inside the building, the concept of growth is illustrated by the journey of a Maple, from seed to tree. The two-story entry vestibule begins the story with the seeds fluttering through the sky. As you walk further into the school, wall graphics show the seeds taking up in the ground and growing into a tree.

Helen Keller Elementary School in Kirkland greeted students with a renovated building and an environmental graphics program focused on the school’s goals of growth, respect, integrity, and perseverance. Using Keller’s life and her learning tools—Braille and sign language—as inspiration, the graphics encourage interaction and learning through a tactile experience. Several of Keller’s quotes appear as a typographic pattern in the main atrium welcoming students to the halls. Although the school is not specifically designed for the blind and deaf, Helen Keller is a universal icon of what it means to rise above life’s challenges.

When school started on September 5, the majority of the graphics programs at Maple Lawn and Helen Keller were in place; the remaining components will be installed over the next several months. We’re also designing graphics for Chinook Middle School in Bellevue, as well as some new projects for the University of Washington, and we’ll keep you posted about those as they develop.

Do you know any kids heading back to school this fall? We’d love to hear about any fun, educational, and engaging graphic elements at their schools that enhance their learning environments!

The Seattle Design Festival kicks off today and Studio SC designers have been helping bring it to fruition. The theme of this year’s festival is “Engage Your World,” and throughout the weekend, the city will be filled with more than 35 different design-related installations, tours, films, speakers, and family programs.

The environmental graphics program that Faith and Cynthia developed highlights some of the city’s best EGD with brightly colored arrows that have been applied to the sidewalks. More than 20 locations are featured in three different categories: Hard-working EGD, Iconic Identities, or Urban Wayfinding. Selected spots range from custom manhole covers to the exterior artwork on CenturyLink Field, to the iconic Pike Place Market Clock. (A master map is available on the festival’s website for download, so people can follow them around the city.)

Cynthia says she hopes the brightly colored arrows will create a sense of discovery and wonder for residents and visitors, offering background on all the environmental graphics they see everyday but may have never known much about—or even viewed as art. “In this way we’re engaging the public in thinking about design, and creating excitement for the festival,” she says.

Are you planning to participate in the Festival this year? Did you participate last year? We had such a good time creating our Design Marks pylon for the King Street Station and can’t wait to see what’s in store for this year! See you at the festival!

A big thanks to Concrete Graphics (street graphics materials), Bron Tapes Northwest (regional rep for Concrete Graphics), Image Mill (printing and installation), and Tube Art (assistance with permitting). 

Photo: copyright Trevor Dykstra. Check out the rest of his photos of the arrow installation. 

This year is the 50^th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair—the 1962 event that saw the construction of the city’s iconic Space Needle, among other things. Beginning this month, the city is marking the occasion with the Next Fifty Festival, a six-month-long event celebrating the history of the Seattle Center and looking toward its next fifty years.

We created a place-making and identification system for the celebration that includes a family of pylons, wall-mounted signs, and painted ground graphics that will identify zones and activities throughout the Seattle Center’s campus. Twelve-foot pylons identify the three zones—the Next Fifty Plaza, the Intiman Playhouse, and the International Fountain Pavilion—and eight-foot pylons identify specific activities and also serve as directional signs.

Events will focus on a range of topics including the arts, science and technology, civic action, global health, and more. Each zone will feature a variety of events as the community gathers to engage in a dialogue about how to harness the city’s creative energy to face the new priorities, challenges, and opportunities of the future.

Signage in urban environments definitely takes a beating—its affected by everything from weather damage to pedestrian interaction—and upkeep can be costly. That’s why we were intrigued when we learned about Système Huntingdon, Inc’s Alto product line.  

This system of sub-surface graphics offers an interesting solution to the exterior signage problem. Système Huntingdon’s unique digital transfer method embeds graphics into architectural materials through a heat-and-vacuum process—essentially making the graphics part of the material. This can be done on flat, textured, or three-dimensional surfaces, embedding graphics into materials such as aluminum, steel, glass, or ceramics. 

A product like this would be great for urban environmental graphics and other signage installations in areas with high pedestrian traffic because the signs will be graffiti-resistant and offer both weather- and UV-protection. The process is also environmentally friendly—it doesn’t emit VOCs, and it uses water-based inks and recyclable base materials.

We’re considering this for our Pacific Avenue wayfinding project because the city of Tacoma is concerned about long-term maintenance. Have you had any experience with these or similar products? We’d be interested to hear about it in the comments section!

Image: An example of Système Huntingdon’s products used in urban environmental graphics.