Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood is home to an existing urban neighborhood gardening project that began in the 1980s. The community got involved in its upkeep and held off developers who wanted to make way for new buildings. The Eco-laboratory, designed by Weber Thompson, would continue the neighborhood farming tradition, but expand on it. The project wouldn’t displace nearby homes or a well-established homeless charity; rather, it would work with the existing neighborhood to promote socioeconomic growth as well as community involvement and physical and environmental health. The entire complex would be net-zero energy and water consumption, and it would incorporate residential space, educational space, and a public market.