As an architect, Jennifer has led a wide range of exciting civic, arts and higher education projects, working collaboratively to find innovative solutions for complex programmatic, budgetary and technical challenges. Below are a few of her favorites in the Seattle area.
VASHON CENTER FOR THE ARTS
Home to Vashon Island’s symphony, chorale, and opera, this community cultural center includes a 300-seat auditorium designed for superior natural (unamplified) acoustics and is acoustically adjustable to host lectures and amplified music performances. The building also features an art gallery, a light-filled lobby that doubles as an event space, theater support spaces and a community room.
This 30,000 sf project demanded innovation on a number of fronts to achieve a state-of-of-the-art performing arts center on a lean budget within a rural community that was nervous about change. The building achieves elegance with an economy of materials, leveraging structural components as unadorned interior finishes that perform acoustically as well as add to the beauty of the existing Island fabric.
Jennifer led this project from conceptual design to construction completion, collaborating closely with the client group, local artists, project engineers, her design team and the construction team.
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SEATTLE ART MUSEUM
Porcelain Room
For centuries, porcelain was a treasured material produced exclusively in Asia. To flaunt porcelain as a possession, Europeans began incorporating porcelain into interior building design. In palaces and homes of the wealthy, rooms were lined with porcelain from floor to ceiling. To honor porcelain’s beauty and history, a room dedicated to porcelain was designated as a permanent exhibit in the expanded Seattle Art Museum.
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It was important to the SAM Curator that the design be contemporary, while evoking a time when porcelain was a highly treasured art and valuable trade commodity. She wanted the room to feel as if it were wallpapered with porcelain, rather than a customary display of artifacts behind glass. This vision was achieved through Jennifer's very hands-on collaboration with the Curator, lighting designers and Museum exhibit designers. This display of more than 1000 pieces of porcelain has been recognized within the Arts world as an award winning exhibit, forgoing the standard museum installation arranged by nationality, manufactory, and date, instead grouped by color and theme.
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The Porcelain Room was just one piece of Jennifer’s work on the 80,000 sf Seattle Art Museum expansion, and a highlight.
PLYMOUTH CHURCH
This 1967 iconic Downtown Seattle church was gifted a 3-story, $2 million pipe organ for their Sanctuary. The renovations that were required to accommodate the organ offered an opportunity to make additional improvements to the space, including controlling the acoustical resonance of the tall voluminous space, providing acoustic support for the voices of the chorale, and the addition of changeable lighting for a variety of worship configurations.
Of the many innovative solutions achieved in collaboration with engineers and the construction contractor, the curved acoustical fiberglass panels installed along the low sidewalls are one of Jennifer's favorites. The panel design celebrates the unique, existing 40 ft tall curved, precast walls and reaches an acoustical solution that elevates the elegance of the worship space.
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Jennifer led this project from concept design through construction completion.
