Daily Journal of Commerce 4/30/2008

Architecture & Engineering

April 30, 2008

Artist Tom Flood in his Madrona studio

A seven-unit, live/work project is his biggest ’sculpture’ yet.
By SHAWNA GAMACHE DJC Staff Reporter

Tom Flood is an unlikely developer. He is a sculptor who teaches at the Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has also taught sculpting and welding at Madrona Auto, his vintage gas station-turned shop and studio at 34th Avenue East Pike S

For the past several years, Flood said he felt like there was something missing from his work. As he grew disillusioned with making static objects, he turned his focus to his property, to the quirky but aging buildings, one where he no longer feels it is safe to hold classes and the other rented out to a real estate company.
His dream is to create a new building that empowers its inhabitants and adds to the neighborhood’s pedestrian streetscape. Next month Flood’s biggest sculpture — a seven-unit live/work project called Pike Station — will have its second design review
Each live/work unit will have a green roof withroom for vegetable gardens. Rainwater will beused for irrigation and solar-powered pumpswill power a cistern beneath the courtyard.
The architect is atelierjones and the developer is Shilshole Development, working in a joint venture with Diluvian, a limited liability corporation that Flood and his wife, Diane, formed for the project. Diluvian means flood-related, or caused by a flood, and was inspired by their last name.
Six of the units will have streetfront work spaces. Flood said the spaces will allow small business owners to live above their offices, and it will add to the pedestrian flow of the corner.
The loft-like units all have green roofs with solar cells and natural ventilation. There will be a central courtyard and rainwater will be used in toilets and washing machines. A “living fence” in front will let passersby watch graywater being treated as it passes through a transparent planter filled with soil and plants.
“I wanted to create work that fed the viewers and in turn the viewers fed it,” Flood said. “The concept of designing with natural systems, it surprised me that itsuch a radical thought.”

The sculpture has changed a bit from his original vision.

Early on, Flood envisioned a rooftop urban farmstead with goats and chickens, inspired in part from his boyhood days growing up on a farm in Montesano, just east of Aberdeen, and in part by his admiration for the work of Austrian sculptor and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, environmental artist Robert Smithson and the writer Wendell Berry.
The units are designed instead with large green roofs and ample planting space, daywater tanks full of rainwater for irrigation, and more rainwater stored in cisterns beneath the courtyard’s permeable paving. Captured rainwater will water plants at ground level, and run through toilets and washing machines in each unit.
Solar cells on the roof will power things like shared lighting and running the cistern. Residents will be able to add additional solar cells, which can return power to the grid when it’s not needed by residents.
Tom Flood in front of one of the buildings he plans to tear down for his new project. The seven live/work units are expected to sell for more than $700,000 each.
“The hope is that the tenants and the owners will use (the roofs) for food growth,” Flood said. “We are going to market these things to people that share our vision for the project.”
Finding those people is important to the project’s success, Flood said. For example, he said if people use phosphorous-based cleansers in their homes they could kill plants in the living fence.
The project will have on-demand hot water heaters and radiant floor heat. Stairwells that exit onto the roof will be designed with operable windows to pull heat out of the naturally ventilated building.
Ground-level work units will face the street. Kitchens will face the courtyard to create interaction and a sense of community. The courtyard includes some spaces for parking, but Flood said he hopes most people will choose not to use them, leaving it open for pedestrians. That will bring more foot traffic to the businesses, Flood said, and foster a sense of community.
Flood said the project was inspired by the Cascadia chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Living Building Challenge, but it will not likely apply for LEED certification.
“To actually apply for the whole thing adds $10,000 to 20,000 to the cost, and I’d rather value-engineer a few more things in,” Flood said. “We’re going to inherently exceed LEED platinum.”
Flood lives less than a block away and has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years. He said some neighbors will have a hard time losing the quirky buildings now on the property. They are a distinctive element of the street and one is even on the home page of the Madrona community Web site.
He said he has been going door to door with the renderings, telling people what he thinks the new development could bring to the neighborhood and attending community meetings to talk about his plans.
“It’s the icon of the neighborhood,” Flood said. “(But) the buildings literally are returning to the earth. It’s in bad shape.”
The project is still in early design, but project architect Brian Gerich said a major goal is salvaging as much as possible from the original buildings and reusing those materials in the new one.
Large double-height windows will bring in a lot of daylight. A vertical screen of climbing plants on the west and south sides, facing the courtyard, will prevent excessive heat gain.
Gerich said he was drawn to the contemporary aesthetic of the building.
“I think it creates a very nice streetscape with the bay windows,” Gerich said. “I think it fits the site really well.”
Gerich said the biggest challenge has been getting in all the natural systems Flood envisions on a pretty tight budget. He said money has been saved by working early on with Shilshole’s general contractor, Albert Gatlin. Structural engineer is Peter Opsahl Engineering and green systems consultant is Mike Broli with Living Systems Design.
The project is expected to cost about $3 million, with $2.3 million of that for construction.
Flood said he realized his limited liability company wouldn’t be able to get financing so he spent two years looking for a developer to work with him in a joint venture. A mutual friend introduced him to Mike Yukevich from Shilshole, and Flood was finally able to move forward.
“He wanted to get into more green building and I wanted a developer who would let me do what I want to do,” Flood said.
Yukevich said Shilshole was impressed with the plans. Shilshole typically works on smaller multifamily developments, so Flood’s idea fit its model. They were also impressed with the location and the environmental aspects of the project, Yukevich said.
“This seemed like a unique project that would sell even in bad times,” Yukevich said. “People like to live where they work and you can’t get much closer than living next to where you work.”
They expect to sell the units in the high $700,000s, Yukevich said, though that will depend on market conditions. Yukevich said they hope to start construction early next year.
The joint venture will sell three of the units and split the proceeds. Shilshole will keep one and Flood will keep the remaining three. Yukevich said Shilshole will likely rent out its unit. Flood plans to move into two of the units with Diane and their kids, aged 10 and 13. He will probably rent out his remaining unit.
“The model is very old… It’s live above where you work,” Flood said. “It’s a centuries-old model that is now returning to vogue, and these green things are returning to vogue, too.”
Shawna Gamache can be reached by email or by phone at (206) 622-8272.