Rethinking project boundaries in architectural practice: attempts at ‘giving back’ in recent work by LMN Architects

ABSTRACT

Project boundaries force architects to work with resources that are insufficient to meet all possible interests, raising questions of distributive justice. In settler colonial contexts, these mingle with questions of restorative justice, prompted by demands to repatriate Indigenous land and life. To foreground how questions of justice arise and are engaged with in contemporary architectural practice, I explore recent work by LMN Architects, an interdisciplinary studio active in complex scenarios with many different interests. LMN is based in Seattle, an area Native Americans inhabited long before the first European settlers. Focusing on two projects in the area – the Mukilteo Multimodal Ferry Terminal and the Seattle Aquarium Ocean Pavilion – I analyse how LMN seeks ways to involve the Coast Salish tribal communities: from programming and design; over siting, spatial organisation, and integration of public art; to material selection, sourcing, and beyond. This analysis allows understanding the studio’s attempts at ‘giving back’ in relation to their ambition to leverage a project’s opportunities beyond the boundaries of its site. Throughout their work, LMN adopts expansive notions of who is affected – by extending whose interests to meet – and what resources to distribute – by reconsidering who is invited to contribute and how invitees may benefit from that contribution.

KEYWORDS:

• Architectural practice
• distributive justice
• difference
• resources

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to LMN Architects for their hospitality, their patience, and the generosity with which they shared their time, views, experiences, and material; to the colleagues who took over my teaching tasks during the period of my Francqui Research Professorship; and to Daniel S. Friedman, Hilde Heylighen, Koen Coomans, Matteo Bianchin, Natalia Pérez Liebergesell, and Sam Michiels, for their invaluable support, the inspiring discussions, and their helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In settler colonialism, the form of colonialism that operates in the United States or other nation-states, the coloniser comes to stay. Rather than selectively expropriating profit-producing fragments, it involves totally appropriating Indigenous life and land (Tuck and Yang 2012).

2. ‘Coast Salish’ denotes a group of Salish-speaking Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in what is now Washington and Oregon (US) and British Columbia (Canada) (Marker 2018). Terms used to communicate about the land’s first inhabitants carry connotations that can be functional or harmful, depending on context (Kessler 2021). Moreover, what people consider most respectful is subject to change. The term ‘Coast Salish’ is falling out of favour as it derives from anthropology rather than community self-description.

3. Forest Stewardship Council.

4. Creosote is a tar made from coal used to preserve wood for marine architecture in the Puget Sound.

5. Since opening in 2021, the Mukilteo Ferry Terminal received over 20 awards, including a 2023 National Honor Architecture Award from the American Institute of Architects. Although still under construction, the Ocean Pavilion received several awards too.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Francqui Foundation (Fondation Francqui - Stichting) in the form of a Research Professorship.