Seattle Design Center Gets a Makeover

By Jennifer McCullum April 27, 2016

A rendering of a building with a car in front of it.

This article originally appeared in the May 2016 issue of Seattle magazine.

In May, the Seattle Design Center (SDC) in Georgetown unveils a significant redesign project: its own. After a year long renovation process, the SDC (Georgetown, 5701 Sixth Ave. S; 206.762.1200; seattledesigncenter.com) now has a new look and has centralized its 25 home furnishings and decor showrooms in one location on its campus. “We wanted to create a building that looked and felt like a real design center,” says Mike Jones of JPC Architects, lead architect for the project, “where you don’t need to have a sign on the desk when you enter to know immediately you’re in a creative space.”

Previously divided between two buildings, a five-story plaza and two-story atrium, the SDC now houses all of its showrooms in the 157,336-square-foot atrium. New porcelain tile, lighting and brighter interior paint replaced the atrium’s previously dark, dated lobby, which hadn’t been redesigned since the ’70s.

“The [designers] who come here [with clients] deal with color all day,” Jones says. “We wanted them to not be overwhelmed, to have a clean, contemporary palette.”

The clean-up continues outside the building with the bulky concrete canopy of the SDC’s entrance replaced with a larger, sleeker surface topped by a gypsum-board plane that extends from the interior ceiling, connecting the inside with the outside and creating a welcoming entry for the building. “When you walk in now, you can breathe, you can think big,” Jones says.

This month the Seattle Design Center (SDC) in Georgetown unveils a significant redesign project: its own. After a year long renovation process, the SDC (Georgetown, 5701 Sixth Ave. S; 206.762.1200; seattledesigncenter.com) now has a new look and has centralized its 25 home furnishings and decor showrooms in one location on its campus. “We wanted to create a building that looked and felt like a real design center,” says Mike Jones of JPC Architects, lead architect for the project, “where you don’t need to have a sign on the desk when you enter to know immediately you’re in a creative space.”

Previously divided between two buildings, a five-story plaza and two-story atrium, the SDC now houses all of its showrooms in the 157,336-square-foot atrium. New porcelain tile, lighting and brighter interior paint replaced the atrium’s previously dark, dated lobby, which hadn’t been redesigned since the ’70s. “The [designers] who come here [with clients] deal with color all day,” Jones says. “We wanted them to not be overwhelmed, to have a clean, contemporary palette.”

The clean-up continues outside the building with the bulky concrete canopy of the SDC’s entrance replaced with a larger, sleeker surface topped by a gypsum-board plane that extends from the interior ceiling, connecting the inside with the outside and creating a welcoming entry for the building. “When you walk in now, you can breathe, you can think big,” Jones says.