Carnation Civic Center transforms a modest residential lot into a substantial community campus, connecting existing structures with a new city hall building. The central plaza provides versatility for hosting various special events, including community activities that benefit from indoor-outdoor connections where rollup doors connect the plaza to the building. Mature trees were retained to enhance the sense of destination and define the campus’s boundaries.

Accessibility is at the heart of this design, effectively providing ADA paths of travel throughout the compact site with crucial connections at varying elevations. Simultaneously, rainwater from the city hall building’s roof is collected into cisterns, from where it is directed into a rain garden and utilized for seasonal irrigation. Stormwater management is implemented on-site, exceeding regulatory requirements and complemented by areas of permeable paving. The planting design incorporates predominantly native selections to create areas of woodland, riparian, and prairie, reflecting the surrounding Snoqualmie Valley environment.