Urban Sanctuary by Jim Olson: An Evolving Art-Filled Apartment in Seattle
A private refuge within the city
Jim Olson's Urban Sanctuary occupies two levels of a nine-storey building in Seattle's Pioneer Square Historic District. Olson led the design of the building, completed in 1987, and established a home there with Katherine Olson. Over more than three decades the apartment has served as a place to test how architecture, art and light can make ordinary domestic space feel expansive, even within the physical limits of an urban building.
The project differs from houses that seek inspiration primarily from landscape views. Its principal subject is the inward experience of moving through rooms where carefully controlled light and collected artworks change the perception of enclosure.
A white stairwell as an abstract centre
The original apartment is organised around a skylit stair connecting its two levels. Its white walls, simplified geometry and carefully controlled light remove many clues to the room's physical scale. A relatively compact stairwell becomes an apparently monumental interior, offering a sense of calm that Olson associated with clarity and contemplation.
Light-filled domes inspired by James Turrell deepen this impression. They dissolve the perception of a conventional ceiling and make luminous surfaces seem to continue beyond the limits of the building. The stair becomes a deliberate contrast to the tactile and personal rooms arranged around it.
The living room as a space made with art
In the living room, a mural by Jeffrey Bishop is punctuated by sculptures by Nancy Mee. Its deep blue colour recedes, suggesting an infinite night sky rather than a flat painted wall. Olson relates this effect to ancient Egyptian tomb imagery and modern investigations of space and perception. The mural is part of the architecture because it changes how far away the enclosing surfaces seem.
The integration of art continues elsewhere. Cast-glass backsplash tiles by Ann Gardner introduce luminous material into the working kitchen, allowing creativity and craftsmanship to be encountered during everyday activities, not only in rooms reserved for display.
The 2008 glass intervention
In 2008, Olson enlarged the kitchen to add a small sitting area. A glass wall rising approximately fourteen feet separates the new area from the stairwell. One face reflects the room; the other gives a more translucent view of its neighbour, creating different impressions depending on where a person stands.
This intervention renewed the investigation into visual continuity across the apartment. It also gave the kitchen greater social capacity, acknowledging that domestic life changes even when the underlying architectural ideas remain valuable.
A planted edge above Pioneer Square
Beyond the kitchen, the terrace introduces a small natural environment into the urban interior. The presence of planting, seasonal change and daylight provides a sensory counterpoint to the carefully composed artificial light of the internal rooms.
The terrace is an important part of the apartment's idea of sanctuary: it offers contact with nature without removing its occupants from the historic city below. Its relationship to the interior makes the home feel larger and more varied than its enclosed floor area alone might suggest.
A further expansion in 2021
The apartment expanded in 2021 when Olson acquired an adjacent unit. The new plan addressed the occupants' changing needs, adding a sitting room, a home office, an accessible primary bedroom suite and an elevator between levels. These changes demonstrate how a personal design can support later phases of life rather than remaining fixed at its original moment.
The new rooms use a more relaxed and tactile material vocabulary than the pristine white staircase. Instead of attempting to duplicate the 1987 geometry, the extension creates a conversation between different periods of the apartment's life.
The gold room and its moving boundary
One new sitting room uses gold-coloured surfaces and a ceiling of ash-wood strips laid against a warmer background. Natural fibreboard flooring contributes an unexpectedly ordinary texture to the luminous palette. A large sliding door decorated with rectangles of toasted stainless steel can separate the room from the rest of the residence.
This door is both a practical piece of domestic equipment and a sculptural surface. Its shifting position changes the relationship between the older apartment and the new addition, revealing that privacy in this home is adjustable rather than absolute.
An expanding art collection
A wood-and-gold sculpture by Dan Webb and a photograph by Barbara Noah add layers to the new sitting room. Elsewhere the family's collection includes works by Andres Serrano, Jane Hammond, Mark Tobey, Don Brown and Mary Ann Peters, among others. Art is not simply gathered as a display of individual acquisitions; it is placed in dialogue with each room's light, materials and proportions.
Because the residence has evolved over decades, the collection brings its own chronology into the architecture. Different works converse with changes to the structure and with the ongoing life of the people inhabiting it.
Landscape, accessibility and daily life
The latest extension enlarges the outdoor terrace and expands its planting with native Pacific Northwest species. Alongside the new accessible primary suite and elevator, this landscape work shows how the design combines aesthetic interest with practical comfort.
Changes prompted by ageing are incorporated into the building's architectural identity rather than treated as concessions. The resulting spaces remain strongly personal while supporting a broader range of ways of moving and living.
A laboratory that remains a home
Urban Sanctuary is best understood as an evolving composition instead of a single completed photograph. The apartment records successive experiments from 1987, 2008 and 2021, allowing old and new rooms to be visibly different while connected by the overall interest in art and light.
The fifteen official photographs used for this article form a visual record of the residence. The Olson Kundig portfolio credits Aaron Leitz for fourteen of these images and John Nakatsu / Olson Kundig for one; the caption assigned to each photograph retains this distinction.
Project information and photography
Project: Urban Sanctuary, Pioneer Square Historic District, Seattle, Washington, USA. Design principal: Jim Olson, Olson Kundig. Original design 1987, later renovation 2008 and extension 2021. Project manager for 2008 and 2021: William Franklin. Interior design contributor for 2021: Christine Burkland. Fifteen photographs selected from the official Olson Kundig portfolio; fourteen carry Aaron Leitz's individual site-gallery credit and one is attributed to John Nakatsu / Olson Kundig.
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