Russell Investments Center

The Russell Investments Center is a Contemporary skyscraper designed in 2003 by NBBJ, and built between 2004 and 2006, for a reported $370 million dollars, in Seattle, WA.

Russell Investments Center is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The building has changed names several times over the years, and is also known as:

• WaMu Center between 2006 and 2008.
• Chase Center between 2009 and 2009.
• Russell Investments Center from 2009 until this day.

Its precise street address is 1301 2nd Avenue, Seattle, WA. You can also find it on the map here.

In 2007 the Russell Investments Center was awarded with the Honor Award recipient from the American Society of Landscape Architects.

NBBJ was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the Russell Investments Center a reality:

• Magnusson Klemencic Associates in charge of Structural Engineering
• Sellen Construction as the Main Contractor
• Pine Street Group LLC as the Main Developer
• Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg in charge of Landscape Architecture
• Callison Architecture in charge of Interior Design

The Russell Investments Center can be categorized as a Contemporary building.

The Russell Investments Center uses a framed tube-in-tube structure , with steel columns and poured concrete over metal decking slabs.

A framed tube-in-tube structure uses a central core, known as inner tube, which usually holds stairs, lifts and installations, and a perimeter of columns around it, which form the exterior tube. The interior tube is tipically more massive (often made of reinforced concrete), and the exterior tube is "lighter" (made of steel or concrete columns). Both tubes are conencted via horizontal elements which make up the floors and also transmit any horizontal froces from the facade to the core.

The facade employs a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame at the edges of the floor slabs. The perimeter columns are set back slightly from the facade, allowing them to remain independent of the curtain wall system.

This configuration enables a completely free design of the curtain wall, unencumbered by structural elements, thus providing greater flexibility in aesthetic choices and maximizing the visual impact of the exterior.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features blue-tinted glass panels supported by a metal framework, providing structural integrity and adding to the building's contemporary aesthetic. Some parts of the facade highlight the horizontal lines of some floor levels, while other parts empathise the verticality of the building through stone-clad vertical lines of different widths.