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August 3, 2020

Here's how new 264-room citizenM hotel stacks up in South Lake Union

Photos from citizenM [enlarge]
Seattle’s first fully modular hotel is now open.

Inside on the ground floor, Native American artist Jeffrey Veregge — a Seattle resident — has contributed a large-scale tech-themed mural in his comic-book inspired style.

Seattle's first fully modular hotel — citizenM — is now open at 201 Westlake Ave. in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood.

The seven-story hotel with 264 guestrooms is made of 228 modules. They were finished in a factory in order to reduce the impacts of traditional construction on traffic, air quality and emissions.

Gensler Seattle worked with citizenM — the Dutch hotel and lifestyle company — and its long-time architectural partner concrete Amsterdam, to design and build the hotel. This is citizenM's first West Coast hotel and the 20th citizenM hotel worldwide.

Gensler Seattle was responsible for overseeing the concept application for the project's core and shell architecture.

Because the modules were assembled in a factory, they are not subject to risk factors like weather delays or labor and material shortages.

“Research has shown that the benefits of modular construction are threefold: speed to market, it addresses labor shortage issues, and increases product quality,” said Case Creal, senior associate at Gensler's Seattle office, in a press realease. “The South Lake Union team stacked seven to eight modules per day on average, and the 264 hotel rooms were set in just 89 days, allowing for a schedule reduction of four months.”

Because Seattle is in a high-seismic zone, Creal said that the challenges were different than those of a typical modular building.

“A standard module structure needs to be stiff during transportation and craning so that any lateral or dynamic loads (waves while on the ocean or bumps on land) do not result in damage to interior finishes,” Creal said. “That same stiff module structure needs to become part of a flexible structure when placed on site. Flexibility is required to meet the seismic design loads in Seattle.”

The rooms are only 160 square feet, and include king-size beds, soundproof walls and rain showers. Guest can also use self-service check-ins, super-fast Wifi, and a touch screen tablet to control all room features.

The hotel facade is wrapped by an extra-large art piece by Jesse LeDoux, a formerly Seattle-based art director of Sub Pop Records. Inside on the ground floor, Native American artist Jeffrey Veregge — a Seattle resident — has contributed a large-scale tech-themed mural in his comic-book inspired style.

At street level, a recessed corner entrance leads not into a traditional lobby with a reception desk, but into a living room furnished with couches, chairs, tables, books and art.

The hotel was designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.




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