Designing for non-profit enterprise: Richard Hugo House and Habitat Espresso

By Mark Millett
Millett Associates

Each commercial client brings his or her self-interest and a range of personal motives to a design project. Although usually unstated, the architect's secondary client is the community - the city and the public.

Seldom does the architect get the opportunity to design projects for private clients with the primary goal of serving the community and its inhabitants. Two recent projects - Richard Hugo House and Habitat Espresso - meet this criteria. The intent of each project was to make a contribution to the urban life of Capitol Hill and the City of Seattle.

Each is a center for social interaction and action. And the design challenge was to make each attractive and welcoming and to reinforce the role of the individual in the larger community.

Richard Hugo House retains its classic facade, a large front porch with two main entries and a forecourt garden to welcome the public.

Both of these projects were guided by the vision of a few local individuals and supported by private philanthropy from the software industry. Critical to both concepts is the development of a sense of place: one, a community center for writing, education and the exchange of ideas. . .the other a coffee house in the European tradition.

Richard Hugo House is a new place for writers, readers and audiences. It is a center where writing brings people together: artists, politicians, planners, business people, seniors, youth, the privileged and the homeless. It is a place where many voices can be heard and valued.

The project is a remodel of the former New City Theater at 1634 Eleventh Ave., which was originally built as a mortuary.

Seldom does the architect get the opportunity to design projects for private clients with the primary goal of serving the community and its inhabitants.

Much of the work involved updating the building. Fire codes, access issues and other building and health code updates were addressed. The existing spaces were reorganized to serve as offices, classrooms, a library, meeting rooms and small private environments for individual readers and writers. Not surprisingly, the facilities underwent a major electrical and communications infrastructure update to serve the well-used computers and word processors.

The theater space is enhanced with better soundproofing, back-stage dressing, storage and restroom facilities as well as legal public restrooms. The cafe - with its mini-stage - has a new look and finishes, improved lighting and is now fully accessible. The lobby serves as a community clarion and is set up to disseminate information and promotional materials for the local writing scene as well as the other arts. The building retains its classic facade, a large front porch with two main entries and a forecourt garden to welcome the public.

Habitat Espresso is dedicated to "investing in the Seattle community and empowering individuals to make a difference in their lives.'' The primary goal is to generate revenue for designated charities while providing a comfortable space that customers can use to share community awareness and ideas.

The primary goal of Habitat Espresso is to generate revenue for designated charities while providing a comfortable space that customers can use to share community awareness and ideas.

Habitat Espresso (202 Broadway Ave. E.) is a retail environment, although the goal of the project is to bring resources back out into the community in the form of charitable projects.

A unique design image is critical to its success in a world already populated with many espresso emporiums. The long, narrow space (18 feet by 60 feet) has an angled wall along one side that provides a series of different sized private niches with comfortable built-in seating, tables and shelves loaded with books. The ceiling is low and curved to help create intimacy and the angled wall is made of horizontal blue-stained wood slats that provide both privacy and connection to the more open central area. A long, gently curving concrete counter has seating at one end and the service area at the other end. Above the counter, finely crafted wooden display boxes give information about the recipient charities, and there is a large bulletin board for community postings. A central raised niche area, framed by the blue-slatted wall, serves as a small stage that is used for meetings, readings, performances and small musical ensembles.

This little space is rich in materials - flooring made from recycled glue-laminated beams, hand-wrought iron brackets, recycled glass tiles, torch-cut steel frames, unique light fixtures, straw-board ceilings - all made by local companies and artisans. This brings a friendliness and warmth to the space as well as community "ownership."

These projects are about community and a sense of place. They are designed around the activities they are intended to promote - performance, art display, reading and writing, meeting and learning, discussions, eating and drinking, personal discovery and individual action.

Return to design '98 top page

---

Copyright © 1998 Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.