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November 26, 2015

Turning 40 brings change at Hewitt

By LYNN PORTER
Journal Staff Reporter

Photo by Benjamin Benschneider [enlarge]
Hewitt has done a number of apartment projects here including Dimension by Alta.

David Hewitt said when he moved to Seattle in 1960 there were only a few good restaurants, and you couldn’t buy a drink on Sunday or hang out at a sidewalk cafe because there weren’t any.

“We’ve come a long way since those days,” he said.

The Seattle-based architecture and landscape architecture firm he founded in 1975 — now called Hewitt — has experienced the peaks and valleys of Seattle’s economy through those 40 years.

The firm’s architectural studio focuses on mixed-use, high density housing and transit projects. The landscape and urban design studios work on Hewitt’s projects as well as for other architects and public agencies.

Current work includes 2nd + Stewart, a 39-story apartment tower in downtown Seattle that Atlanta-based Wood Partners plans to start next spring. The 177-unit building will have a modest cantilever over the adjacent 10-story Broadacres building.

Hewitt is also designing light rail stations in Seattle, and has done a number of apartment projects here including Dimension by Alta, 206 Bell, Rubix and Cue.

Landscape architecture projects include University Village, Bell Street Park and Amazon Block 44, and the firm has also worked on urban design for the Third Avenue Corridor, and framework plans for Interbay and West Seattle.

Turning 40 has brought some changes in leadership, with new principals Leah Ephrem (transportation); Matthew Porteous (landscape architecture); Julia Nagele (architectural design); and Sean Ludviksen (high-rise multifamily and mixed-use).

They join founding principal David Hewitt, and senior principals Kevin Ryden, Paul Shema and Kris Snider.

The firm has focused mostly on work in the greater Seattle area, but that is also changing.

Hewitt

David Hewitt said the local focus makes sense because the staff knows the city’s history and understands the way that every block and view corridor presents a different challenge.

But he said they are interested in getting work in other cities, such as Portland and San Francisco: “They think it would be good to expand our horizons in certain ways and go to other places to work.”

Paul Shema said Hewitt is considering opportunities in other regions, initially for current clients, focusing on the types of things it has done here, particularly transit and high density housing.

Shema said Hewitt recently talked with a client about doing mixed-use housing in the Bay Area. “We don’t know where that will lead us, but we’re starting to have some conversations about that.”

Work outside this area would help Hewitt, he said.

“It gives us a little bit of a buffer so we’re not completely hanging on how the Seattle economy rises and falls,” he said.

David Hewitt is 78, and has led design for some of Seattle’s most visible projects: Harbor Steps Apartments, Bell Street Pier, the Port of Seattle headquarters at Pier 69, and transit projects. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and received the AIA Seattle Medal in 2005 for lifetime achievement.

Hewitt said adding new principals is not a leadership transition.

“This is more like Ralph Lauren,” he said. “I will continue to work on design and client service for projects. I am not going to disappear, at least for another decade.”

Rendering by Hewitt [enlarge]
2nd + Stewart is a 39-story apartment tower in Seattle that Hewitt designed for Wood Partners. Work is set to start next spring.

The firm has worked for most of the transit agencies in this area, and recently designed the bus canopy prototype being used for all RapidRide locations.

Hewitt designed the Capitol Hill light rail station, and is designing stations at Northgate, Rainier, Roosevelt and Mercer Island.

Having worked for Sound Transit when the station standards were developed gives them an edge, David Hewitt says: “We were part of the team that wrote the rule book.”

This means the firm understands how the system goes together, he said, but Hewitt still had to interview for each assignment and is usually part of a larger team.

“This did not happen overnight,” he said.

Hewitt said light rail projects are complicated and involve scientific knowledge as well as engineering and architectural design. There are also environmental, political and jurisdictional issues.

“Everybody that can afford to buy a felt-tip pen can design (a new light rail line),” he said, “but it’s not that simple.”

Hewitt said light rail will change this region and how people see it.

“When you can ride to the next Husky football game, people will understand,” he said.

Hewitt is on Gerding Edlen’s team to build apartments adjacent to the Capitol Hill station in collaboration with Schemata Workshop.


 

Lynn Porter can be reached by email or by phone at (206) 622-8272.




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