Here’s a snapshot profile for Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, the third team to have presented at the Reshaping Seattle Central Waterfront presentation September 15th. Each includes the first sentence of each company’s about, services or other page describing their primary focus with a direct link. You’ll also see the location(s), logo, and sample image from each company’s site.

GUSTAFSON GUTHRIE NICHOL

Seattle | London
The local complexities of human experience and natural systems are deeply embedded into GGN’s landforms. This creates landscapes that are serenely grounded while also feeling alive and comfortable at all times — whether bustling with crowds, offering moments of contemplation, or doing both at once. As author Jane Amidon describes, GGN’s “gentle warping and cutting (or cupping and canting) of land form in both plan and section allows a flexible perception of spatial volume, enabling the site to be ‘empty when full, full when empty.’”
> Profile

Foster + Planners

London | Abu Dhabi | Hong Kong | Madrid | New York
Foster + Partners’ architecture is driven by the pursuit of quality – a belief that our surroundings directly influence the quality of our lives, whether in the work place, at home or the public spaces in between. It is not just buildings but urban design that affects our well-being.
Practice > Architecture & Planning <- GREAT WEBSITE

Weinstein A/U

Seattle
Recognized as one of the Northwest’s leading design firms, W_A|U has demonstrated design excellence on a broad array of building types including State, City, Federal, public and not-for-profit facilities, and urban mixed-use and multi-family residential projects.
Profile > Philosophy

Jones and Jones

Seattle
Devotion to place, community identity, and nature kindles our craft. Jones & Jones’ delivery on that promise stems from listening and learning from the land.
Profile > Overview

Lead Pencil Studio

Seattle
A new voice in the emerging field created from the interdisciplinary overlap of architecture and site specific art.
> Lobby

Todd Vogel

Seattle
Executive Director of the International Sustainability Institute, a Seattle not-for-profit which applies world-wide best sustainability practices to the Pacific Northwest.
LinkedIn

Biohabitats

Baltimore | Louisville | Raleigh | Denver | Cleveland | Glen Ridge
Inspire communities to rediscover a sense of place through… preserving indigenous ecosystems, restoring biological diversity, and inspiring ecological stewardship.
About Us > Mission

ETM Associates

Highland Park, NJ
Above all, we bring to the design and management of public space, our commitment to providing solutions that best serve clients, strengthen communities, and create welcoming environments for all.
Firm Profile

Buro Happold

Abu Dhabai | Bath | Belfast | Berlin | Birmingham | Boston | Cairo | Copenhagen | Dubai | Edinburgh | Glascow | Hong Kong | Jeddah | Kuwait | Leeds | Los Angeles | London | Manchester | Munich | New York | Pune | Toronto | Riyadh | Warsaw
Our appreciation of a client’s social, political and economic issues and of architectural and aesthetic qualities makes Buro Happold an ideal partner, helping our range of clients to shape great solutions.
> About Us

Atkins

60 offices in 25 countries
With our community of 650 architects, Atkins is one of the world’s largest architecture firms.
>Profile

Before I steal the City of Seattle’s thunder announcing what firm will take home the grand prize of assuming the lead designer role for reshaping Seattle’s Central Waterfront, I must first say how impressive the turnout was. Over 1,200 people packed the entire main floor of Benaroya Hall and some overflowed onto the second level. Most of all, I’d like to applaud each team that presented their ideas for an impressive display on not only their creativity and obvious hard work, but their commitment and passion as well.

Personally, I was floored by the event! The last couple of years have been distracting over this process in preparing for dismantling the Highway 99 viaduct with the dreaded ‘R’ word, all the hype over ESCALA and 1521′s success selling condos that start at $1 million. For the most part, most of us are familiar with the following video that gives us an idea on what we can expect from the Central Waterfront project:

Well, that video is pretty darn boring now. I really couldn’t be more excited about what incredible changes are going to happen to this city’s urban landscape based on improvements made to our waterfront. In fact, I really have no clue where to begin. After the almost 3.5 hour event, I posted shop right here at my computer and got lost in my words as I tried to organize who said what and what it was they said.

As far as who will play that role of lead design, it doesn’t even need to be said. If you were there, you already know and I truly would hate to spoil the surprise. Nonetheless, this topic cannot effectively be covered in one post. I just feel compelled to share how exciting this is and to get you excited about the information we’ll be posting between now and October 1st (announcement date of official lead design team).

Until then, we’re going to review our notes in more detail, and present each firms concepts to the best of our ability. If you would like to review each overview we publish, we encourage you to sign up by entering your name in email in our sidebar, or subscribe to our rss feed.

Also, we can’t help but to be curious on who you think is going to be chosen. Please select your idea on who should win with the poll on our sidebar.