Street Critic | Our neighborhood series: Inform Interiors

Inform Interiors is located on Bellevue Avenue between Pike and Pine Street, in the Colman Building. The building dates from 1916 and was originally a showroom for the Stanley Auto Agency. It retains, thanks to a thoughtful restoration, the large display windows that characterized the Capitol Hill auto showrooms from that era. Collectively, they are known as ‘auto row’ buildings.
As one would expect in a home furniture and furnishings showroom that features contemporary design, there are many shiny, geometrically pure housewares of mostly European design. Contrasting nicely with that aesthetic are the hand-woven baskets from Africa, which are the product of local artisans.
The showroom is as conducive to displaying furniture as it was automobiles. The open floor plan, afforded by heavy-timber construction, continues to offer flexibility in layout to the current tenants, allowing them almost endless ways to arrange lighting, chairs, couches, and rugs. And unlike current construction, the columns and beams were milled from single old growth logs, not laminated together from smaller pieces as is today’s practice.
Home furnishings are a type of fashion with trends coming and going, making familiar pieces, such as this Aalto Vase, pleasant reminders of the enduing power of classic design. The vase was first exhibited in the famed Finnish Pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. The oak cheese boards were also designed by Alvar Aalto (1898 - 1976) who many consider to be among the finest architects of the 20th Century.
Inform is on two floors in the Colman Building. While only occupying one half of the first floor, the second floor is all theirs and is flooded in daylight. The building was recently completed renovated, with new building services and a seismic upgrade. Note the large steel wide flange columns and beam that ensure the building is robust enough to survive the next earthquake. The steel structure is unpainted and left in its ‘mill finish’.
A thing rarely seen in today’s buildings is when the structure and the finish are the same: the beams and columns are Douglas Fir, as its the tongue and groove floor. The materials deployed for the furniture include ever-so-thin plywood, wrought iron, and textiles covering varying amounts of sculpted foam.

Inform Interiors is located at 1526 Bellevue Ave. You can learn more at informinteriors.design.

The Street Critic is an occasional CHS special featuring architectural and design observations from the built environments on and around Capitol Hill. This special neighborhood series has been created to highlight features of some of the area’s most important gathering places as restaurants, bars, cafes, and shops face unprecedented challenges during the ongoing pandemic. Is there a space you would like us to feature? Let us know in the comments.

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.

CHS Capitol Hill Seattle News

Community News For All of Seattle's Capitol Hill

Post navigation

Street Critic | Our neighborhood series: Inform Interiors

Share this: