Weber Thompson is back at the Festival this year with their latest installation, Timbre – which asks the question, “What if structures could sing?” This immersive installation’s columns double as musical instruments – brought to life through human interaction.
Timbre will be present at the SDF Block Party in Lake Union Park this August 17-18! Hear about what inspires the team’s work in design.
Brittany Porter (she/her) is an architect and designer of high-performance, sustainable workplace and multifamily housing projects. She is a Senior Associate at Weber Thompson and was the Senior Project Architect for Northlake Commons, a mass timber, LEED Platinum, biophilic workplace Passionate about low-carbon architecture that promotes health and wellness for all, Brittany is a Certified Passive House Consultant and LEED Green Associate. She was the designer of Pax Futura, Seattle’s first passive house multifamily building, and the winner of the 2020 PHIUS Passive House Projects Multifamily Award. She served on the Passive House Northwest Board of Directors through 2021, was the AIA Young Architect Regional Director of the Northwest & Pacific Region through 2022, and acted as liaison to the national AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE). She currently sits on the Board of Directors for AIA Washington Council.
Brittany earned her B.S. in Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her Master of Architecture degree from the University of Oregon.
Q&A
How do you use WHAT IF? thinking in your work?
‘What if?’ is a powerfully liberating and essential question I ask in my daily life, both inside and outside my architecture practice. It is a queue for experimentation, creativity, and liberation. Too often, design thinking is tempted to start beneath a burden of realities. ‘What if?’ allows us to temporarily shed that weight, ascend to a broader imagination, and then return to the center to navigate any necessary compromises.
Tell us about a project that you completed that you are most proud of.
I’m most proud of a project completed earlier this spring: Northlake Commons – a LEED Platinum mass timber office building built above a Dunn Lumber yard warehouse. Public spaces and retail invite the community into the site and connect the Burke Gilman Trail to a view of Lake Union. The south end of the site is home to a regional bioswale that cleans more than 2.6 million gallons of public stormwater before it enters the lake. I spent nearly five years as the project architect of Northlake Commons. That period of my career highlighted the most rewarding part of architecture is collaborating with a talented team towards a shared ambitious goal and the satisfaction that comes from seeing others enjoy the space you all added to the world. Read more about my thoughts on Northlake Commons here!
What is your ultimate goal when it comes to your work? What do you hope to contribute?
As a kid, wanted to ‘save the world’. I suppose I wanted to build a utopia for all people, animals, and plants in need to flourish. A part of that childish ambition is still within me, but it presents itself much more pragmatically these days. I hope to contribute to places and spaces that enrich people’s lives, solve problems, and allow as many living things to thrive as possible. I care deeply about conservation of resources, but also equally about amplifying joy. In architecture and design, the two goals often go hand in hand.
How should community influence design?
I’d like to see a world where communities impact design at the same level of influence as landowners. Ideally, more communities would be able to own land and development opportunities cooperatively and thereby use the economy of built projects to support their community’s needs. This ideal feels far away, but it was more common in the formative days of Seattle and other cities and is worth advocating for.