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Unveiled in October as the new home for the Seattle Kraken hockey team and the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, the $1.15 billion Climate Pledge Arena will be the first such structure to earn a net-zero carbon certification from the International Living Future Institute, which requires buildings to limit and offset all construction emissions and use only renewable energy. Architecture firm Populous designed the building—located on the 1962 world’s fair grounds in downtown Seattle—to incorporate both historical elements from the former KeyArena and green-building elements, such as rooftop solar panels and a cistern that recycles rainwater. The ambition behind the new facility is matched by its scale: At 740,000 square feet, it’s twice the size of its predecessor and is poised to take in some 2 million visitors each year. “We have shown that you can create a sustainable arena while preserving some of the original building,” says Populous lead designer Geoff Cheong. “It’s going to challenge a lot of developers [and] be a model for the future.” These six elements illustrate Populous’s innovative techniques:
1. Historic highlights
Populous preserved 44 million pounds of material from the original world’s fair site, including a landmark 1962 roof (that had to be “floated” while the new arena was constructed below), building columns, and a dramatic shingled-glass facade that floods the atrium with light.
2. Preserved landscape
The firm went to painstaking lengths to preserve the 67 London plane trees that were planted for the world’s fair and now surround the arena, “from pruning the roots to applying root conditioner, so they wouldn’t be impacted,” Cheong says.
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