Photo courtesy of Sellen Construction Co. The procurement strategy for the Gates Foundation campus involved attracting international subcontractors and suppliers to furnish its unique features.

Sellen helped the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation achieve LEED platinum certification for the first phase of its campus, which includes two six-story office buildings totaling 900,000 square feet.

Intense collaboration among all design team members ensured that the client’s vision — qualitative, functional, aesthetic and sustainable — was understood from the very beginning while the field team executed the highly complicated design without loss of time or impacts to the schedule.

Sustainable features include more than half an acre of green roofs, use of local and recycled building materials, 25 percent lower energy consumption than required by code, and ample open space with extensive use of natural lighting.

Sellen worked with the city of Seattle and Seattle City Light to relocate utilities without neighborhood disruption while excavating more than 700,000 tons of contaminated soils. Because of the distinctive final design, a procurement strategy was developed to attract international subcontractors and suppliers for unique features such as the curtainwall, exterior elements such as glass, stone and copper, and other high-performance materials.