Aegis Living Lake Union

Project highlights: Aegis Living Lake Union

• Architect: Ankrom Moisan Architects
• Owner: Aegis Senior Living Communities,  LLC
• Location: Seattle
• Category: Special recognition

Adjacent to Lake Union in Seattle’s Eastlake neighborhood, this assisted living and memory care community is the first to achieve Living Building Challenge Petal Certification. It melds central principles of beauty, place, and net-zero energy to shape a community that highlights the region’s remarkable past and provides a sustainable and healthy living standard for residents.

Aegis Living seeks to offer seniors new communities near where they are already living, easing the transition into assisted living. Although the site was in an established community well served by transit and a main bicycle route, Aegis Living struggled to make the project viable. The design team proposed participating in Seattle’s Living Building Pilot Program, which provides additional design and zoning flexibility. With an understanding that achieving a Living Building Challenge–certified building would not be easy, the team worked closely with the developer to audit its existing buildings’ energy usage. Additionally, with no existing assisted living baseline to draw from, the team relied on a blend of building types and the developer’s data to create a reasonable EUI baseline to outperform.

The project eliminates the use of potable water for uses, so all irrigation and toilet flushes use greywater that is recycled on-site. A biofiltration system also captures and treats water from the residents’ showers, which is then reused on-site. Together, this system saves more than 140,000 gallons of potable water each year. Aegis Living Lake Union also achieves a dramatic reduction in the building’s EUI through a 78kW photovoltaic array with a 50kW battery storage on-site, which provides power during emergencies. Off-site renewable energy makes up the difference.

Drawing on the natural beauty of Lake Union and the region’s history as the training site for the 1936 U.S. gold-medal-winning rowing team, the project references the craftsmanship of wood rowing shells and their motion across the water. Expressed by simple, high-quality materials, they evoke patterns in water and the movement of oars. This motif continues throughout the building’s design with subtle nods to rhythms of rowing seen in the brick herringbone detailing around windows, the entry canopy, and custom-designed steel balcony railings.

Since opening, residents have expressed a love of the building’s design and its strong connection to local history. Despite the intense western sun during Seattle’s summers, thermal comfort within the residential units is exceptional, as are the views of the lake and the majestic Olympic Mountains. The project has spurred another collaboration between the team and developer, and an additional Living Building Challenge project in West Seattle is currently in design.