1901 E Fir St Apartments

When Seattle relaxed its parking requirements in 2011, it opened up new opportunities to create more housing within existing buildings that were previously frozen in amber by the requirement to provide one parking space for every dwelling unit. At the Sylvan Apartments we took that idea to its extreme, removing all of the surface parking for the existing building, and building twenty new apartments in its place.

To fit the building into the long narrow space available, the building is configured with a single stair to minimize circulation and corridor space. The building is designed to be structurally independent from the existing building in order to avoid triggering expensive upgrades of the existing structure. An existing carport in the original building was re-purposed into a lobby and lounge to connect the two buildings functionally.