The Seattle Aquarium Ocean Pavilion (SAOP) embodies interconnectivity and sustainability, linking various iconic Seattle landmarks to the ocean. The Ocean Pavilion integrates with the urban waterfront and the Aquarium’s nearby harborside buildings, offering a collection of immersive marine experiences. The new Ocean Pavilion highlights the connection between people and marine life at home and around the world. The facility also serves as a link to downtown Seattle, Pike Place Market, the newly revitalized central waterfront, Elliot Bay, and the ocean beyond.

The 4,645-m² (50,000-sf) building features living habitats and ecological experiences, moving beyond traditional aquarium models to highlight the connection between human and marine life. As a complement to the habitat experience, the Ocean Pavilion tells an unforgettable story about Earth’s one ocean through state-of-the-art digital storytelling.¹ The project honors its location on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish peoples, incorporating their input into the design and cultural framework for the building, landscape, exhibits, and public art.

The Pavilion, designed by LMN Architects along with Thinc Design, who designed the exhibit spaces, includes two large, public-facing habitats where visitors can observe the aquatic life.

The first habitat is The Reef, a nearly 1.89-million L (500,000-gal), multi-story area designed to mirror an Indo-Pacific coral reef. The second habitat consists of two smaller habitats—the Archipelago, an Indonesian mangrove forest that’s surrounded by a pool of sea stars, fish and rays, as well as live plants, and another habitat that includes a variety of fish species and live coral.

Unique construction

The large habitats have essentially no straight edges and The Reef consists of 520 m³ (680 yd³) of concrete and 322 tonnes (355 tons) of rebar—four times the rebar used on a typical core—comprise the 0.61-m (2-ft) thick walls with six layers of reinforcement. The aquarium is in the heart of downtown Seattle’s waterfront, which has been undergoing a multi-year redevelopment. Site constraints, coupled with a small footprint on a fill site in a seismic zone, required careful logistics planning to depict the multiple milestone phases of construction. The small footprint left little space for staging, and the geometry of the primary habitats meant that formwork coordination and prefabrication efforts would need to account for numerous life-support systems and embedments prior to site delivery.

Among the software products used to overcome these challenges were Trimble Access with TSC7 data collector, Trimble FieldLink, Trimble Connect, Trimble RTS771, Trimble X7, SketchUp and Tekla Structures. The imported geometry, facilitated by the Tekla Live Link, served as the foundation for subsequent detailing and constructability analysis. Tekla Structures provided a comprehensive suite of analysis for creating accurate concrete elements, formwork, embed, rebar and more. These tools enabled the creation of detailed installation sequence drawings specifically developed for the tank’s formwork and concrete lift drawings.

While the project presented several challenges, one of the issues the Turner Construction team managed was working from a contractual 3D model provided by LMN Architects that represented the geometry of the primary habitats. This was the basis for Turner’s self-performed concrete detailing efforts, combining all formwork, rebar, embedments, acrylic viewing windows, and mechanical systems into one model used to generate the necessary shop drawings and digitally fabricated formwork elements.

Environmental stewardship

The Aquarium’s vision is to produce more environmental benefits than harm, helping ensure a climate-resilient, sustainable future for all—in other words, to become a regenerative aquarium. This commitment is reflected throughout the Ocean Pavilion, which is certified LEED Gold and is targeting Zero Carbon Certification. The facility operates fossil-fuel-free, recirculating nearly all of the saltwater in its habitats—saving water and energy. Water-to-water heat exchangers recapture heat from tank water being discharged, and use it to heat the incoming makeup seawater from Puget Sound. Using water from Puget Sound reduces the amount of potable water used for exhibits.

The heating and cooling systems use 91 percent less energy than traditional systems, and the architectural and design teams carefully chose materials, such as the Alaskan yellow cedar exterior panels on the building’s west face, which are Forest Stewardship Council-certified and come from an Indigenous-led company.

The Zero Carbon Certification requires the Aquarium to offset 100 percent of the building’s operational energy use with new renewable energy. Some buildings meet this requirement by installing rooftop solar panels, but SAOP’s rooftop is a public space to enjoy. To that end, the organization is working with the local utility to enter into a power purchase agreement that will add solar renewable energy capacity to Seattle’s electric grid.

Green materials, from carpet made of recycled fishing nets to recycled-paper panelling, reflect the commitment to environmental stewardship, while every detail, from the dichroic acrylic accents and exposed mechanicals to working with Indigenous consultants, speaks to transparency, inclusion, and interconnectedness.

To honor and acknowledge the Aquarium’s location on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people, the project team worked closely with Indigenous consultants and members of the urban Native community to inform the programming, design, and cultural framework for the building, landscape, exhibits, and public art. Engagement included hearing traditional stories from tribal elders, workshops with tribal youth, and regular design sessions with Indigenous consultants.

Additionally, the pavilion uses concrete mixes designed to reduce its carbon footprint, including Portland-limestone cement.

SAOP is the first aquarium building in the world to pursue Living Future Institute (ILF) certification.

Corrosive environments and lighting

Lighting is an important component throughout SAOP, prioritizing the animals’ needs while enhancing habitats and other exhibits. For example, the team had to ensure there were sufficient lighting requirements for all the plants, including grow lights.

“The animals are very sensitive to light, so the entire facility includes a lighting control system based on the animals’ circadian rhythm. This means the front-of-house light output slowly increases over an approximately 90-minute timeframe. The duration that they stay at this level, and when the light output gradually decreases, is all specifically planned with the Seattle Aquarium Ocean Pavilion aquarists,” says Hanna Kato, project architect, LMN.

Equally critical to the facility is the back-of-house (BOH) infrastructure, which requires extensive planning, including specifying luminaires that can withstand the unique challenges of this environment.

Unlike the BOH facilities in museums, entertainment centers, and art galleries, aquarium life support systems operate 24/7/365 to maintain water quality and keep the animals healthy. These corrosive settings need chemical-resistant luminaires, certified for wet locations, to ensure the fixtures do not fail, while performing at optimum light output. High ingress protection (IP) ratings prevent the ingress of dust and water into the fixtures, reducing maintenance costs and time. These factors are crucial for ensuring worker safety, optimizing productivity, and maintaining efficient operations.

Corridor lighting

When specifying lighting for SAOP, project designers considered the duties of aquarium employees who work with the animals, as well as those responsible for the building systems and areas accessible to guests.

“The aquarium and the exhibit designer collaboratively decided to incorporate behind-the-scenes (areas) as a component for the guest experience,” says Susan Bullerdick, the aquarium’s senior director of capital projects. “As such, the lighting ensures guests can safely navigate hallways and also allows them to clearly observe intricate details of the animal habitats and equipment.”

LED luminaires have been installed in the back-of-house (BOH) corridors as part of the sustainable infrastructure features. The lighting system is designed to be energy-efficient and withstand a corrosive environment.

Jesse Phillips-Kress, vice president of facilities and operations, worked with PAE-Engineers to ensure the lighting system selected met these challenges. This project uses 457-mm (18-in.) diameter ceiling-mounted luminaires.

The luminaires are constructed from marine-grade die-cast aluminum, ensuring corrosion resistance and high-abuse properties, making them ideal for the aquarium’s back-of-house (BOH) corridors. Additionally, the IP65 rating is appropriate for this wet location.

SAOP’s aquarists, marine technicians, and facilities team need the BOH corridors uniformly illuminated. The light output ranges from 3,086 to 12,943 lumens, ensuring corridors are evenly lit and illuminated with bright, white light.

“Knowing the fixtures withstand a 1,000-hour salt spray test gives me confidence that these luminaires installed in the corridors can meet SAOP’s challenging environment,” says Phillips-Kress.

Results

The entire team and trades partners maintained a singular focus on delivering the best possible facility through intense collaboration and innovation. The award-winning facility engages, inspires, and educates visitors from around the world and greatly benefits the Seattle community.

To ensure the lights—critical for the living habitats—would not be obtrusive to the guest experience, the lighting design included custom fixtures for over the coral habitat, which took extensive work to set in place and focus where needed to best recreate the look
of a marine ecosystem in the wild.

The facility’s efforts to reduce energy and water consumption, and carbon footprint include innovative use of a central air heat pump system and a semi-closed water system. Complementing these are LED luminaires installed in the back-of-house (BOH) corridors. These luminaires are energy efficient and, more importantly, able to withstand the highly corrosive environment.

Photo courtesy Kenall Manufacturing

Author

Matt Szymanski is Western regional sales manager for Kenall and may be reached at matthew.szymanski@kenall.com. Kenall, a brand of Legrand, was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1963 and has built a reputation for durable lighting solutions of superior quality and exceptional value. Kenall luminaires are designed and manufactured in Kenosha, Wisc., and can comply with the Buy American Act. For additional information, visit kenall.com.

Key Takeaways

Seattle Aquarium’s Ocean Pavilion (SAOP) links urban waterfront to ocean, showcasing immersive marine habitats, sustainable design, Indigenous collaboration, advanced lighting, and regenerative practices, setting a new global standard for aquariums and environmental stewardship.