Best of 2018: Why do so many new apartment buildings in Seattle look the same?

Ashli Blow

Ashli Blow Jul 1, 2025

Dec 28, 2018

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                <h1>Best of 2018: Why do so many new apartment buildings in Seattle look the same?</h1>
                <h2><p>As Seattle continues to boom, so does the market for apartment buildings. From Ballard to Beacon Hill, towering cranes presage the arrival of mid-rise apartment buildings, soon followed by new neighbors. Curbed Seattle recently reported that in 2017 alone, the city added 7,500 new residential units. And often the</p></h2>
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               <p>By <a href="/author/ashli-blow/">Ashli Blow</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Dec 28, 2018</time></p>
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            <figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6wMJEV_58Kk" width="560"></iframe></figure><p>As Seattle continues to boom, so does the market for apartment buildings. From Ballard to Beacon Hill, towering cranes presage the arrival of mid-rise apartment buildings, soon followed by new neighbors. Curbed Seattle recently reported that in 2017 alone, <a href="https://seattle.curbed.com/2018/1/26/16938894/seattle-area-residential-construction-2017?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">the city added 7,500 new residential units</a>. And often the buildings that have housed those units are strikingly — and, for some, depressingly — similar. You know the look: towers clad in candy-colored paneling. Love them or hate them, the look and feel of these structures goes way beyond the facade. We asked local architect Rick Mohler to deconstruct Seattle’s new apartment buildings.    <strong></strong></p>
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As Seattle continues to boom, so does the market for apartment buildings. From Ballard to Beacon Hill, towering cranes presage the arrival of mid-rise apartment buildings, soon followed by new neighbors. Curbed Seattle recently reported that in 2017 alone, the city added 7,500 new residential units. And often the buildings that have housed those units are strikingly — and, for some, depressingly — similar. You know the look: towers clad in candy-colored paneling. Love them or hate them, the look and feel of these structures goes way beyond the facade. We asked local architect Rick Mohler to deconstruct Seattle’s new apartment buildings.

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By Ashli Blow

Ashli Blow is a Seattle-based freelance writer who talks with people — in places from urban watersheds to remote wildernesses — about the environment around them. She’s been working in journal