Located in the middle of the BECU Storm Center for Basketball Performance’s three levels is a gathering space that represents the heart and soles of the storied Seattle Storm franchise. An innovative shoe display serves as backdrop to a tiered seating area constructed from the KeyArena court on which the Storm won three of its four WNBA titles. ZGF Architects — which served as architect of record and interior designer on the team headquarters project while collaborating with Shive-Hattery Architecture + Engineering (exteriors) — responded to the Storm’s desire to display shoes of historical significance by devising a system of vertical stainless steel rails to which individual “shoe boxes” could be affixed. Each box is illuminated from above and below, and each shoe’s sole rests on a clear plastic tube cut at an angle that varies from box to box. The system allows boxes to be added or removed. “The client came to us and said, ‘Hey, we have all these amazing shoes that are often created specifically for our athletes. Many of them have a unique story about who they were made for or what particular competition they were a part of, and we’d love to show a rotating display of them,’ ” says ZGF’s Kathy Berg, a partner in charge for the project. Surprisingly, the team was ready to get rid of the history-laden court and its logo until ZGF stepped in, freed the hardwood of its subfloor and reconfigured it into stadium-style seating that accommodates visiting media, basketball campers or executive training participants in a presentation area on the building’s midlevel — between the practice and player spaces below and conference and office amenities above. “You see it in multiple different ways, but because you can look down on it from the top you see the whole thing together, reassembled,” Berg says. “What we loved about it is it added color, it added character, it added some history.”
