50th Anniversary Book by Berger Partnership

Berger Partnership going strong since 1971

I N T RO

Place

Craft

Impact

O N WA R D

L E GAC Y

G R AT I T U D E

BERGERITES

AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S

We realize change and beauty in our world by thinking big, inspiring all to imagine what is possible, and empowering the courage to make it a reality. We celebrate our 50th anniversary with gratitude for the people, projects, and shared experiences that brought us here. We are enormously proud of our firm’s history of pioneering thought, design leadership, and long-term relationships, which form the foundation on which we work every day. While our approach is rooted in the firm’s legacy of enduring work, we are a forward-looking bunch, growing and learning with every project, never fully satisfied because we know that our best work is yet to come. We are excited to prove it every day.

This book reflects where we are going based on where we have been. It is not a chronology of our firm’s life, though we do indulge in a few memories of the journey. Rather, this book is emblematic of the firm we are becoming because of the legacy we’ve built in partnership with people like you. There is much work to do in our world—challenges to solve and opportunities to seize—on the smallest to the largest of scales.

All landscapes are local. Climate, vegetation, building materials, and community needs vary in subtle yet rich ways from one region to another and one city block to another. Our work is rooted in an understanding of place—the unique physical and cultural conditions of each project.

We are not stylistic. We do not apply standard forms or elements to our designs; rather, we ask an evolving set of questions that help us discern and leverage what does and could make each place special. As practitioners, we are similarly rooted in place. We work where we live, and we remain present and engaged long after construction is complete.

Place

Berger Partnership at 50

Seattle’s Heart —

Pike Place MarketFront is the first post-viaduct building block to forge a new connection between Belltown, the market, and the shores of Elliott Bay. The forthcoming promenade will bridge a relic section of bluff that once defined Seattle’s pre-development shoreline. Blending history, market culture, and topography, the pavilion deck and ramp seamlessly expand the Pike Place Market footprint in keeping with the deeply rooted historic charter of the Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA). In combination with the ramp and top-level deck, the west-facing plaza adds much-needed public open space to the city and sustains a beloved vantage point for viewing Puget Sound—and sunsets.

Place

City Forest —

Located in the heart of South Lake Union, REI’s Flagship Store welcomes visitors with a Northwest forest entry into the REI experience. Guests are routed through steeply sloping topography of native trees and shrubs, including mountain hemlock and Alaska cedar, starting in the understory and climbing through the forest canopy to the building’s main entrance. A rushing stormwaterfed waterfall obscures noise from the adjacent freeway and draws visitors to the entry.

Berger Partnership at 50

The thriving forest ecology was jump-started with a layer of forest duff reclaimed from another construction site, which was used to stimulate mycorrhizal functions occurring in Pacific Northwest soils. Fifty-eight native plant species are interwoven with entry paths, a mountain bike test trail, product demonstration areas, and a nature trail. Enjoyed by two million people annually, this was one of REI’s first retail stores to offer its patrons a hands-on interactive experience inside and out.

Place

Elevated! —

A powerful, sacred site for the Spokane Tribe and the birthplace of the city of Spokane, Riverfront Park was home to the 1974 World’s Fair (Expo ’74) and became a cherished park. Forty years after Expo, the park had become stronger as a memory than in reality; it was ripe for reinvestment by a new generation. The park’s reimagining reintroduces local materials and ecologies long erased from the site. Snxʷ Meneɂ (Salmon People) Island, renamed by the tribe, incorporates a place for tribal gathering and storytelling. The new design reconnects visitors to the river and builds civic pride by showcasing the richness of the natural landscape. At the heart of the park, the iconic U.S. Pavilion is reborn as a terrarium of sculpted landscape and catwalks under a net of cables and light blades that energize both passive activities and live performances. Today, Riverfront Park is emblematic of Spokane’s future: a proud community on the rise.

Berger Partnership at 50

Place

Berger Partnership at 50

Riverfront Park is emblematic of Spokane’s future: a proud community on the rise. Place

Island Living — The Sitka Apartments provides the experience of the San Juan Islands for tech workers in a fast-paced South Lake Union neighborhood. The design features a stream; a meadow of Northwest native plants including Pacific madrone, Sitka spruce, and camas; a tidal edge made from salvaged driftwood logs; and plantings tucked into a rugged bluff edge. A steeply pitched living roof and an urban farm comprise the rooftop. Sitka’s high ecological performance earned it LEED Platinum certification, as well as a LEED Homes Award for its positive impact on the community through sustainability, health, and resilient design. It is on track to achieve Seattle’s 2030 Challenge goal of reducing water and energy use, and is irrigated entirely with gray water except for the veggie gardens on the roof.

Berger Partnership at 50

Place

Contemporary Olmsted —

Originally designed by the Olmsted Brothers, Cal Anderson Park is the village green and recreational epicenter of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. It is a much-loved crossroads and destination for this diverse and densely populated area located blocks from downtown. Lidding the site’s open water reservoir breathed new life into the park and reestablished a much-needed social balance lost during the years it was surrounded by a

Berger Partnership at 50

chain-link fence. Today, its timeless and elegant design accommodates a wide range of uses. As the landscape architect for Seattle’s first reservoir lidding effort, we assisted both Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle Parks and Recreation with developing cost-effective and efficient standards and procedures for four sites, three of which we later designed: Cal Anderson Park, Jefferson Park, and Maple Leaf Park.

Place

Civic Catalyst —

The Redmond Central Connector reimagines a former rail corridor that ran through the heart of downtown Redmond as a shared-use trail, linear park, and infrastructure corridor. More than a means of forging physical connections within the city, the project was a cultural catalyst that realized the city’s goal of creating a public place for events, experiences, gatherings, and art. The project has reshaped the downtown character and perception of the city as an increasingly vibrant and rich community for residents and visitors alike. Planned and designed in partnership with local artists, the corridor is home to curated permanent art and ephemeral interventions. It also serves as a venue for performances and festivals, and offers places for pause and recreation.

Berger Partnership at 50

More than a means of forging physical connection, the project is a cultural catalyst.

Place

Berger Partnership at 50

Filbert Fields Forever —

Despite Bellevue’s rapid growth, an orchard of filberts planted over one hundred years ago remains as the foundation of the story of Surrey Downs Park. Adjacent to a new regional light rail corridor, which was the catalyst for public investment in the park, the pastoral design of Surrey Downs provides an alternative to the thriving high-density downtown to the north for its adjacent singlefamily community. Rolling topography and lawns provide a setting for playgrounds, walking trails, picnic shelters, and a gathering bowl while presenting territorial landscape views and buffering the park from sights and sounds of passing trains.

Place

Curated Connection —

One of Seattle’s most cherished landscapes, the Washington Park Arboretum is a historic Olmsted-designed arboretum, a living laboratory of ecologically and culturally significant plants, and an integral transportation link to the city. The Arboretum Loop Trail deftly weaves an active multimodal transportation corridor through plant collections and environmentally critical areas while enhancing access and ecology. More than a footpath, the trail’s design invites visitors to explore urban ecology, appreciate and absorb horticultural knowledge, exercise, and find places for pause and respite while forging new connections to the region’s trail network.

Berger Partnership at 50

Place

Found Parkland —

The design of Jefferson Park is emblematic of the diverse and welcoming community of Beacon Hill. A source of great pride, the park functions as a central gathering place. An inclusive outreach effort engaged the diverse community speaking in twenty-three languages and fulfilled the neighborhood’s desire for a destination park.

Berger Partnership at 50

Building the park over a Seattle Public Utilities subsurface reservoir added acres of views and open space for festivals, family picnics, skateboarding, and play. To commemorate the park’s legacy, a winding loop promenade reminiscent of the original Olmsted Brothers’ design graces the open lawn with arching lines that connect the community center to destinations within the park.

Place

Ponderosa Pines —

Berger Partnership at 50

Central Washington’s landscape is defined by the mighty ponderosa pine—as was the planning and design of Roslyn’s Suncadia Resort, which honors and protects these trees. The site design bridges modern-day amenities with the surrounding natural beauty. Boulders, water features, and native flora blend with concrete, stone, and pavers. These elements play harmoniously with the buildings to create a distinctive four-season Northwest respite in the Cascade Mountains. An amphitheater and community gathering space, a spa and pool club, fire pits, an ice-skating rink, and acres of cross-country skiing beckon guests to venture out to enjoy the forest, timber bridges, winding roads, creeks, and trails.

Place

Craft is the marriage of material and purpose: a deep understanding of physical properties and intentional function. It is forever bound by physics, weather, and budgets. We believe that the enduring efficacy of our profession lies in built work—our ability to translate ideas into a physical form that communities inhabit.

Craft encapsulates our commitment to not simply build, but to build well. What may begin as an individual pursuit—doing a job well for its own sake—is ultimately an outward focus intended to better our shared environment. We do not build projects for ourselves alone.

Craft

Desert Oasis —

As a producer and international distributor of premium fruit, the owners of Washington Fruit & Produce Company wanted to create a work environment representative of the company’s culture and connection to the area’s agricultural history. Located in arid eastern Washington, the site is surrounded by a major highway and industrial fruit storage and processing facilities. A simple earthen landform of native plantings including Indian ricegrass, yarrow, and orange butterfly weed wraps the building and courtyard and creates a lush green oasis. The setting provides light-filled views of the surrounding hills while screening nearby industrial activities. Plantings of Rocky Mountain iris and paper birch along with native stones are laid out in a grid within the courtyard of the barn-like structure, recalling the pattern of orchard rows. Agricultural shade cloth, typically used for growing hop vines, stretches over a trellis at the entrance and provides much-needed cover from the midday sun for the parking area.

Berger Partnership at 50

Craft

Berger Partnership at 50

Craft

Berger Partnership at 50

The Shire —

The owners, a wildlife photographer and a blacksmith, envisioned a small main house and guesthouse carefully detailed with sustainable function and architectural restraint. The main home sits at the interface between forest and meadow facing Puget Sound. Subtle grading and vegetated roofs embed the home into the landscape while its views to the water remain open and expansive. The result is a thoughtful and beautifully crafted home that feels as if it grew out of the site. The guesthouse, set back in the trees, is tucked under an earthen berm seemingly heaved from the emerald forest floor, and cloaked in fescue, sword fern, and dappled light. Its surgically precise construction process preserved every tree—damage-free—and created new habitat with the vegetated roof and berm.

Craft

Berger Partnership at 50

Craft

Berger Partnership at 50

Copper River —

The first phase of the Alaska Airlines campus connects the existing headquarters to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Alaska’s training center through a pedestrian promenade called The River. The promenade was designed to encourage a cultural shift in the airline’s workforce by providing employees with

an ecological oasis where they can walk, enjoy nature, and gather—and it manages all of the site’s stormwater. A temporary meadow and an emergent wetland elegantly demonstrate the company’s commitment to sustainability by highlighting visible stormwater runnels, a large central rain garden, and a plant palette inspired by native Garry oak prairie and Douglas fir forest.

Craft

Sky Meadow —

The client wanted to emulate their Menlo Park, California, campus in an urban, multistory building with comfortable casual garden spaces where employees could work, meet, walk, dine, and expand the sphere of their productivity beyond the traditional workspace. The scheme required detailed coordination with the shell-and-core architect to meet an accelerated schedule. Terraces on four levels provide a dynamic series of spaces for socializing, gathering, and working, while the open floor plan—an integral part of the flexible work environment—connects nearly every work space visually to the interior or exterior landscape. Berger also led the design of the interior landscape with a playful creative theme linked to the outside roof terraces.

Berger Partnership at 50

Craft

Berger Partnership at 50

Craft

Building Legacy — 42

Berger Partnership at 50

For generations, the journey down Commencement Walk has been a rite of passage for the incoming freshmen and rising seniors of the University of Puget Sound. Formerly disparate walkways throughout campus, the renovated Commencement Walk provides a dedicated pathway and new home for this important university tradition. Bronze markers, which commemorate graduating classes dating back to 1893, flank the beginning of the granite walk. The path then passes the color post, a stately obelisk that displays the colors of the primary disciplines taught at the university. Next is Benefactor Plaza, an eddy for pause; from there, the pathway continues to the new Event Lawn, which hosts large tents for fundraisers and celebratory occasions. The journey ends at Memorial Field where convocation begins and graduation commences.

Craft

All landscapes are global. Our work begins with openly acknowledging the myriad worldwide challenges such as habitat loss and climate change, and accepting the responsibility that our work has a direct impact on our shared environment.

Beauty alone is not sufficient. Landscapes must work to clean, heal, and bring people together. We embrace a wide range of views, outside expertise, community input, and trusted collaborators to push beyond our current standards and metrics.

Impact

Naturally Unnatural —

Berger Partnership at 50

Contrary to its appearance, the emerging landscape and wetland complex of Magnuson Park is anything but natural—it is every bit as engineered as the naval runway that formerly occupied the site. Praised by academics and environmental agencies as a model for ecological function, this project transformed an inaccessible site into one of Seattle’s largest sportsand-wetland complexes. Using a vegetation strategy to accelerate successional growth and a system of daylighted stormwater and conveyance ponds, a once-flat tarmac now teems with native flora and fauna, and works in concert with the sports complex experience.

Impact

Let It Rain — Georgetown Wet Weather Treatment Station, a gateway landmark for its Seattle neighborhood, will treat up to seventy million gallons of combined sewage overflow (CSO) per day. An integrative design approach between King County, the design team, and the community advisory group, this Envision Platinum certified infrastructure project improves the community’s quality of life and the health of the Duwamish River by providing ecological, economic, and social return on investments. The design showcases the inner workings of the treatment plant and integrates it into the community by making the stormwater treatment process visible to the public. Expressions of craft, grit, and neighborhood character at all scales humanize the design of this large-scale project.

Berger Partnership at 50

Impact

A Living Landscape —

Heralded as the first mid-rise commercial building and park typology in the world to meet the Living Building Challenge (LBC), the Bullitt Center functions as a net-positive energy building, consuming less energy than it produces. As landscape architects, Berger Partnership integrated the landscape design with the building’s wastewater and stormwater systems, and crafted visual and educational experiential learning opportunities for occupants and the visiting public. Each planting area is a functional landscape that reveals the natural processes at work. A successful model for constructing and exhibiting innovative and ecologically sensitive design and green infrastructure, the Bullitt Center redefines the way landscape can support—and replace—conventional building systems and inspire users to implement similar systems. The design of adjacent McGilvra Place Park preserved eleven century-old London plane trees, and was certified as a Living Park under the LBC’s Landscape + Infrastructure typology.

Berger Partnership at 50

Impact

Berger Partnership at 50

On Track —

Developed by the City of Seattle and Sound Transit as a response to the city’s affordable housing needs, Capitol Hill Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is the first of several TODs built upon land purchased for light rail. This nexus of connectivity and community unites low-income and market-rate housing with a festival street, retail shops, public amenities, and a plaza to host a farmer’s market.

Located in the heart of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, celebrated for its large LGBTQ+ population, the plaza features art as part of the AMP: AIDS Memorial Pathway, a place for remembrance, reflection, and sharing stories of the AIDS epidemic. The AMP connects the TOD to Cal Anderson Park, named after Seattle’s first openly gay legislator who advocated for gay rights and died of an AIDS-related illness.

Impact

A School in the Woods —

IslandWood provides experiential environmental education to kids by linking ecology, technology, and the creative arts on a 255-acre site designed to protect and preserve mature forests, streams, wetlands, ponds, and salmon habitat. The state’s first LEED Gold certified project and recipient of an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment Top Ten Green Projects National Award, IslandWood demonstrates highly innovative regenerative ecological systems such as solar meadows, a Living Machine to process blackwater on site, composting, organic gardening, and constructed wetlands.

Berger Partnership at 50

Impact

Ecological Commons —

Berger Partnership at 50

Seattle University wanted a sustainable landscape to serve as a model for future projects on campus. The LEED Gold certified plaza and rain gardens of Lemieux Library—the social and academic heart of campus—offer academic and physical sustenance and a new destination along the campus spine. This is the place to hang out, eat lunch, and learn. Ample spaces abound for formal gatherings, people watching, and quiet contemplation. Designed in compliance with Sustainable Sites Initiative requirements, water features store and showcase stormwater, and Low Impact Development strategies are used comprehensively throughout the site.

Impact

Food, Culture, and Community —

Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands is Seattle’s largest urban farm and one of the nation’s first examples of public land used for commercial urban agriculture. The project was nurtured by the community for the community—a place where people can learn to grow food in the city—and much more. This multifaceted sustainable urban agriculture education center has a high level of community participation and

Berger Partnership at 50

provides local food and resources. The seven-acre site can produce 20,000 pounds of affordable and subsidized fresh produce per year for community members struggling with food insecurity. It offers educational opportunities for at-risk and underserved youth; nutrition and garden education programs; green jobs training and small business incubation; and access to and education about a rare in-city restored wetland environment that improves habitat for native wildlife.

Nurtured by the community for the community.

Impact

Onward We are shaped by where we’ve been, and we’re excited about where we’re going, knowing that our biggest challenges, greatest impacts, and collective rewards lie ahead. Great outcomes take time. That is especially true with landscapes, which must grow to heal the earth and shape lives as intended. So far, we have shared projects that are already realized and thriving, but we have years of work dedicated to what’s next: projects imagined, designed, and moving toward realization. Built upon lessons learned, technological advancements, and ecological understandings embedded in our completed work, these projects begin to chart the course for our next fifty years.

Berger Partnership at 50

Energizing Community

Green Spine

Located in the heart of Wenatchee, the Chelan County PUD headquarters is a community-facing celebration of the Chelan County ecotone. Perched at the confluence of the Columbia and Wenatchee Rivers, an unlikely building typology, typically industrial in character, delivers a triple bottom line outcome of social, ecological, and financial gains for the people it serves.

Stretching from Renton to Woodinville, the Eastrail Corridor passes through Bellevue’s Wilburton neighborhood at its most dense and urban stretch. The Wilburton Framework Plan shapes more than a typical multimodal trail and corridor, it also shapes the character, experience, and culture of an emerging high-density neighborhood with a new “Green Spine” as its catalyst.

Onward

Outdoor Education In form and material, the landscape design of Eastern Washington University’s Interdisciplinary Science Center is inspired by Cheney’s geology and the unique ecologies to which it gives rise. Artfully exposed outcroppings of metamorphic, sedimentary, and igneous rock specimens represent the underlying geology of the state while native plantings such as Palouse grasslands, shrub steppe, moist meadow, wildflowers, and pine understory contribute to the net-zero water goals of this formative science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) building.

Berger Partnership at 50

Rooted in the Northwest The Microsoft Campus Modernization project reimagines the historic heart of Microsoft in Redmond as an entirely new high-density car-free campus and maintains the legacy stand of conifer forest where the company started. The landscape design unifies the diverse architectural villages into a rich campus of iconic gathering spaces, expansive recreation spaces, and quiet spaces for contemplation and collaboration. The modernization serves as an expression and reminder of what makes Microsoft and the Pacific Northwest landscape unique as compared to other more urban tech campuses.

Treasure Hiding in Plain Sight The Melrose Promenade Visioning Study gives form and a plan of action to a community-led vision to transform an underutilized freeway frontage into a public promenade and gathering space. To serve one of the city’s densest neighborhoods, open space, recreation, and amenity nodes claim the westward panoramic view of downtown Seattle, the Olympic Mountains, and the sunset as their signature treasure.

Onward

The Heart of Amazing

Urban Ecotone On a site that once marked the edge of the Duwamish River estuary and mudflats, the landscape of S, a six-building business and retail campus, centers on the water and its native plantings. The newly designed urban ecology honors the natural history of the bay, bluff, and forest that once defined this site while acknowledging and repairing the industrial evolution of the former Salish Sea shoreline. At the nexus of major public and private transportation investments, S will connect the International District, Pioneer Square, Yesler Terrace, the Stadium District, and the renewed Seattle waterfront.

Berger Partnership at 50

The Quincy Visioning Plan proves that small changes can make the biggest impact. The plan identifies a series of permanent and temporary physical interventions such as a pop-up farmers market and street painting intended to enhance economic prosperity, energize the community, and shine a light on the city’s charming downtown core and robust community.

People Power This small but significant project—a simple structural arch or “bent”—was preserved in place and integrated into the Washington Park Arboretum landscape. A marker of both space and time, this concrete structure symbolizes the citywide movement that stopped the destruction of homes, neighborhoods, and parks. The bent is a remnant of a highway-dominated era in transportation planning that was halted by a diverse coalition of activists. It stands as an enduring reminder of what could have been a highway and celebrates the power of grassroots civic activism to enact change and preserve a community.

Leave It Better Than You Found It Kaiser Borsari Hall, an electrical engineering and computer science building, is a first step in Western Washington University’s ambitious vision to become a carbon-neutral campus. Once complete, the mass timber building is anticipated to meet net-zero energy and net-zero carbon goals, achieve International Living Future Living Building certification, and become one of the first carbon-neutral academic buildings in the region.

Onward

1989 Pacific Northwest Bonsai Collection

Legacy 1975 Hoffman Viewland Receiving Station ASLA Merit Award January 1971 Thomas L. Berger Associates Office Opens

1977 First Nordstrom Store

1970

1981 Principal Steve Shea — Bode Residence ASLA Design Award — Seattle University

1983 Whitman College

1988 The Inn at Langley — Principal Scott Woodcock

1980

We are immensely proud of the work in this book, and we are humbled by the important projects and innovation we are on the cusp of realizing. To truly reflect fifty years of our firm’s practice, there is much more to the story: thousands of projects, constant learning (and relearning), and countless collaborations.

1982 Baab Residence ASLA Washington Chapter Honor Award — Principal Jeff Girvin

1990

Our story starts with Tom Berger, Port Orchard-born to a logging family who owned a commercial nursery. He earned a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture at Washington State University. Thomas L. Berger Associates was founded in 1971 during a time when the discipline was beginning to stake its claim in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. Our first office was a windowless back room with a dirt floor in the basement of Bumgardner Architects…somehow, appropriate.

Our first decade brought work on the first Nordstrom store (a relationship lasting over thirty years and taking us across the country) and the Weight Watchers Headquarters in Seattle where we employed green stormwater infrastructure (before that was a term), which utilized sloping subgrades in the parking lot to treat and store water. Buoyed by several American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) national awards, the industry’s recognition of Berger’s work helped the firm outgrow the basement of its Eastlake location.

The early years involved a steady stream of residential projects rooted in Tom’s passion for hardscape and detailing, his love of plants, and his interest in Northwest ecology. Commercial work sprung from the enduring friendships and connections Tom cultivated with his residential clients.

Our project mix grew increasingly urban in the ’80s. We began working in the hearts of many Pacific Northwest cities on visionary multifamily and infrastructure projects, all of which were still drawn with ink and graphite on vellum and mylar.

Berger Partnership at 50

1997 Medina Residence — Seattle Center Grounds & Space Needle Plaza

1996 REI Flagship Store Water feature featured in Smithsonian magazine, ASLA Washington Chapter Merit Award

1991 Department of Natural Resources Green Roof

1993 Department of Ecology LEED Platinum Existing Buildling

1994 Principal Linnea Farrell

1999 Principal Misty Philbin

2002 IslandWood WA State first LEED Gold Certified Building, Living Machine, National AIA COTE Award; Arbor Day Foundation Award for the Integration of Education and the Environment, ASLA Washington Chapter Merit Award, 2001

2003 Cal Anderson Park Named one of 12 Best City Parks in the United States by Forbes in 2009; WRPA 2006 Spotlight Facility & Park Award; ASLA Washington Chapter 2005 Special Mention Award; 2004 ACEC Engineering Award for Complexity; Project for Public Spaces Best Park Competition by Planetizen.com, ranked 4th, 2011

2000

2010

We flourished along with the rest of Seattle and its tech industry in the ’90s, shaping ever more ambitious residential projects and expanding into hospitality and retail developments. This was the decade we embraced technology with our first network of three computers: Larry, Curly, and Moe!

The research allows our firm to test, develop, and implement new technologies, advance an understanding of new approaches to landscape architecture, and uncover highperformance strategies. The 2010s brought the continued expansion of technology, knowledge gained from shared experiences, and project types including linear park corridors.

As the century turned over, the firm grew in size and breadth of work with significant public sector master planning commissions, including some of the Pacific Northwest’s largest and most beloved parks. With more people than seats, we relocated across the pond from Eastlake to the hillside of Westlake overlooking Lake Union.

As our role in shaping Pike Place Market’s first major expansion began, and the MarketFront Pavilion construction moved into full swing, the opportunity to relocate our office there presented itself. Now that we are situated in the market with westward views of Elliott Bay and the landscape beyond, we feel an even deeper physical and cultural connection to our city and region— and a heightened enthusiasm for the next fifty years.

In 2007 we established a research-focused internship that changed, inspired, and elevated employees and clients alike.

Legacy

On working with Tom:

“It started with a Saturday construction meeting. Once the hand waving and opinions were given, it was off to Bayview in a stick shift Cherokee at the speed of a blur. After that first meeting, a book—Ethnobotany of Western Washington by Erna Gunther—was given to me. It was the first of many lessons.” —Stephen Nogal Innkeeper/Chef, The Inn at Langley

“In 1986 we heard that there was office space available at the former Bumgardner office where Tom, Jeff, and Steve had taken over the main floor… we moved in and stayed for twelve years… Tom was very pleased to have architects paying him rent to be in HIS basement.” “We were given the opportunity to collaborate on many wonderful park projects, but I think Tom was just making sure that we had enough rent money.” —Bob Hoshide Architect

Berger Partnership at 50

Gratitude — We did not accomplish anything in a vacuum. Like any successful endeavor, amazing people and decades-long relationships shaped Berger Partnership into the firm it is today. We are blessed with inspiring collaborators, clients, architects, engineers, and more— we believe in the power of collective thinking and action! Sometimes the least visible, but the most significant: we acknowledge the teachers and mentors who selflessly gave of themselves, sharing ideas, thoughts, strategies, expertise, perspectives, and so much more, personally and professionally. Finally, as we take stock of our world, we express immense gratitude for the living ecologies that connect and ground us in our work. It is with great humility that we acknowledge our role as stewards of the earth in addressing today’s challenging issues from global climate change to habitat creation for pollinators and designing for extreme weather conditions. This fifty-year milestone is a direct result of relationships with people and places. We are grateful for and in wonder of the generosity and blessings of so much and so many. Thank you!

Thomas L. Berger, Founding Partner

Bergerites — Over the past fifty years, many people have contributed to the firm’s wide array of projects and strong client relationships, and have set the course for a legacy that continues to thrive. Each has left their mark by shaping our culture and craft, strengthening the power of place, and inspiring others to imagine what could be. Of the collections of people who made up Berger Partnership throughout the years, none surpasses the current crew of Bergerites who are shaping the future of the firm, our profession, and the world.

2001 postcard announcing our move from the Eastlake office to the Westlake office featuring principals Linnea Ferrell, Steve Shea, Misty Philbin, Tom Berger, Greg Brower, Jeff Girvin, and Scott Woodcock.

Berger Partnership at 50

Acknowledgments — To the best of our knowledge, all images not recognized below are credited to (and the copyright held by) Berger Partnership.

Lara Swimmer Pike Place MarketFront, 4-5; Riverfront Park, 8 (middle); Capitol Hill TOD, 52-53

Graphic Design/Art Direction:

Mithun IslandWood, 55 (left)

Annemieke Beemster Leverenz Photography Credits:

Nic Lehoux Bullitt Center, 50

Front Cover, Washington Fruit and Produce Company by Kevin Scott

Northwest Playground Equipment Inc. Surrey Downs Park, 18-19 (right top and bottom)

Back Cover, Magnuson Park by Doug Scott

Seattle Parks and Recreation Jefferson Park, 23 (middle); Magnuson Park (public domain), 47 (top)

Andrew Buchanan Cal Anderson Park, 14-15 (top, bottom left); Surrey Downs Park, 19 (left); Jefferson Park, 22 (left); Suncadia Resort, 24 (left, bottom); confidential, 40; Magnuson Park, 46 (left), 47 (middle); Seattle University Lemieux Library, 56-57 Ben Benschneider University of Puget Sound, 43 (left); Bullitt Center, 51 (top right) Better Blocks Quincy Visioning Plan, 64 (lower right) Built Work Photography Riverfront Park, 8 (top left, bottom left), 9-11; Sitka Apartments, 12-13; WPA Loop Trail, 20-21; South Whidbey Residence, 32, 34 (top left); Alaska Airlines HQ, 36; Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands, 58-59 (top, bottom left, and middle)

Sean Airhart Alaska Airlines HQ, 37 Sue Frause The Inn at Langley, 66 Smithsonian magazine REI Flagship Store, 67 Ross Mulhausen, University of Puget Sound University of Puget Sound, 42-43 (right) Rendering Credits: Courtesy of Microsoft Microsoft, 62-63

CAST Architecture Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands, 59 (bottom right)

Miller Hull Georgetown Wet Weather Treatment Station with Berger Partnership, 48 (top left), 49 (top)

Denny Sternstein REI Flagship Store, 7 (left)

Mithun IslandWood, 54 (top right)

Doug Scott Magnuson Park, 46 (middle)

Motiv courtesy of Urban Visions S, 64 (upper left)

Ed Sozinho Redmond Central Connector, 17

Perkins&Will WWU Kaiser Borsari Hall, 65 (right)

Kevin Scott Washington Fruit and Produce Company, 28-31, 70; South Whidbey Residence, 33, 35

Signal Architecture + Research Georgetown Wet Weather Treatment Station, 45-46, 48 (right), 49 (bottom)

| Kristin L. Kildall | Susan Kirk | Kit |

Berger Partnership at 50