1916 BOREN

Installed: 2025
Location: Seattle, WA
Representative: SeaTac Lighting & Controls

Sabin created the BLOCK pendants for the café at 1916 Boren, a retrofit project situated between the Denny Triangle and South Lake Union in downtown Seattle.

This site, previously a car rental office and surface parking lot, now houses 11 stories of offices and labs, street-level retail, and 3 levels of underground parking. The architectural design firm Collins Woerman, in coordination with landscape architecture firm Fora Landscape Architects (previously Weisman Design Group), had a vision of investing in the growing life sciences sector nearby. Notable neighbors include University of Washington Research, Allen Institute for Bioscience, and Seattle Children's Research Institute, the last of which pre-leased part of 1916 Boren during construction for future use in pediatric research, cementing its place in the community.

With a roof deck and patios on each floor, the design deliberately focuses on tenant comfort and experience. Sabin BLOCK in the café appears both lit and unlit, addressing acoustics and lighting within the same design language, mirroring the blocking that starts in the façade and extends throughout the space, appearing in the café as open shelving.

Each BLOCK diffuse pendant emits 4,000 lumens of light, nearly 5x the amount of a standard 60 watt lamp bulb. Handmade to order, BLOCK fixtures are sewn together using the structural integrity of the felt as the frame, providing a dense surface material for maximum acoustic absorption.