Located on Expedia Group’s new 40-acre corporate campus bordering Seattle’s coastline, the Prow is a biophilic retreat for the company’s staff. The design creates a soulful sanctuary that is integrated with the surrounding environment and away from the day-to-day offices, allowing employees to clear their mind and thus spurring innovation. The resulting concept was driven by form and function. 

When the design team began the project, a master plan had been created by the landscape architects. The corresponding site plan articulated a series of cascading plateaus descending from the offices down to Elliott Bay, home to the Port of Seattle. A collection of 800-foot-long canted stone riprap walls define the edges of these plateaus. The Prow is discretely integrated into the landscape as an extension of these gestural landscape walls. The retreat is hidden in plain sight with a roof that mirrors the planted ground plane but simply lifted at one end. Seen from the headquarters, it appears as a geometrically-planted landform akin to one of the landscape’s many natural features. 

When seen from Centennial Park, it resembles a floating wing supported by a pair of stone walls that slowly emerge from the site. The Prow’s vectoral shape references the concept of motion as the campus is the epicenter for a plethora of transportation modes encompassing air, land, and sea. High above the campus are the regular flight paths of planes departing from and arriving at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The Prow’s wing form symbolizes Expedia Group’s mission to aid in the art of travel, much of which starts with flying. 

The roof plane thus becomes an abstracted icon of global travel. Approaching from within the campus, one is met by two black portals elegantly positioned within a single-story stone wall—representing the threshold between the everyday and the aspirational. The larger is flanked by sidelights that reveal a wooden interior. Inside, one is surrounded by a singular room crafted from natural materials. The northern and eastern walls are solid, while the southern and western walls are glazed, framing Mount Rainier in the distance. 

The south-facing glazing opens to a floating deck covered by a 50-foot cantilevered roof plane. The large room is broken down into three separate seating groups. The first convenes around a heroic Nakashima table with seating for twenty people that facilitates meetings with satellite offices. The second is a casual seating area centered on the expansive view. The third cluster is an intimate gathering of seating around a fireplace — with the fire being the ultimate vehicle for transcendent thought. 

Indigenous Pacific Northwest materials define the palette, creating a biophilic space that authentically honors the region. The walls are constructed from the same stone as the riprap found along the Elliott Bay shoreline, while the floors and ceilings are crafted from local Douglas Fir trees.