Rendering by Moment Architecture

We’ve all heard it: the economic crisis has shown us how fragile is the line between economic health and hardship. Economic strife helps us to see food bank customers not as vagrants, but as our neighbors, ourselves. Ballard Food Bank has always promoted this idea; its motto is “Neighbors helping neighbors.” But more recently, the truth in that statement seems to have finally sunk in.

The new design for the Ballard Food Bank comes at a time when our society’s acceptance of food bank customers has finally caught up with the philosophy of progressive food banks.

It used to be food banks preselected your groceries, placed them on the counter in front of you, and said “Here are your groceries.” Today, many food banks have found ways to treat the customer with respect and dignity, to give the customer the freedom to make their own choices. At the White Center Food Bank, customers point to what they want behind the counter, and an employee retrieves the food. Ballard Food Bank has elected to go further, giving more freedom to the customer. Inside the existing warehouse at 5130 Leary Way NW, Ballard Food Bank will build a tiny grocery store. Customers can wheel around tiny shopping carts up and down the aisles, making their own decisions about what to choose.

In the long term, Ballard Food Bank hopes to use a planned demonstration garden and demonstration kitchen to help teach customers to make wise choices. The food bank’s director, Nancy McKinney, is a Master Food Preserver certified by WSU. She says she hopes some day the food bank’s kitchen can teach all of us how to cook.

As more and more food banks add things like gardens to their grounds, food banks seem poised to take a more central role as institutions of culinary learning. Because in the long term, as the cost to distribute food across the world increases, more and more of us will find the current system of food distribution too expensive. Going to Ballard Market will feel like going to Whole Foods. Another round of layoffs, another economic crisis could find any one of us reliant on a food bank. Ballard Food Bank has another world to show us, another way of finding and preparing healthy food.

We’re excited to see the Ballard Food Bank shed its old digs, where customers had to wait outside in the rain, where pallets of bread cluttered the offices and hallways. We’re excited to see what happens when Nancy and her crew move into a building supportive of the institution’s potential. And we’re thankful we’ve had the chance to serve as the architect on this project.

See you at the food bank!

One of Emily's projects under Demetriou Architects

A few years after she graduated from the UW Architecture program in 1996, Emily Hennigs found her way to Demetriou Architects. There she quickly became an important part of the Kirkland firm, managing multi-million dollar homes with creativity and professionalism. Clients learned to trust her, and to enjoy her company.

Vassos Demetriou taught Emily everything she knows about running a firm. How to keep clients happy, how to respond promptly to minor hiccups before they develop into crises. In Vassos, Emily saw an architect who had so pleased his clients, they returned to him decades later, when they were ready to build again.

At Demetriou Architects, Emily also learned how to apply contemporary architectural values to buildings of all styles, from traditional to modern. These values include openness and transparency, and basing design on the needs of the clients, rather than on strict traditions.

But Emily’s roots are in Seattle, not the Eastside. She wanted to work where she lived. Like many in her generation, she felt a pull towards greater sustainability. She longed to source local materials, and to design homes of a more modest scale.

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