An architect’s office building rarely becomes a tourist attraction. But just east of Seattle’s downtown, the offices of Schemata Workshop, built in 2016, draw national and international visitors.
That’s because the overall project, Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing (CHUC), represents a rare contemporary example of single-stair architecture. The term refers to structures above 4 stories with a single stairway, meaning they have one means of egress. But a combination of zoning codes, fire safety concerns, and financial pressures have made single-stair construction impossible to build across roughly 97 percent of the United States. CHUC, which includes ground-floor offices and 4 stories of housing, has become an aspirational model of this
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