Allied8 PLLC

We are a women owned architecture firm in Seattle, and we are re-writing the rules of architectural practice in our city. Architectural practice is predominately available to a select few, of privilege. At Allied8, we are pioneering a new way for architects to deliver beautiful design, to communities most harmed by historic redlining and racist lending and zoning practices. We are innovating housing typologies in the face of our housing crisis. We are actively addressing large urban problems with small scalable projects. Our primary mission is to keep communities together by reducing displacement. Accordingly, we are creating new affordable homeownership typologies that enable low-income buyers to buy their first home in cities where they work and go to school. We achieve this by broadening the scope of services that is typically provided by an architecture firm. We are designers (typical), we are policy advocates (atypical), and we are real estate developers for community (extremely atypical). Equally as important is the work we do for a different market sector: high-end environmentally innovative projects which allow us to push sustainable building practices as far as we can, ensuring our carbon footprint is low. These projects generate more revenue than our mission driven work and thus support our capacity to offer lower rates to our mission driven projects this is a very intentional choice we make. Most other architecture firms chose a single market sector which can maximize profits but limits impact. We target a 10% aggregate profit across both sectors which has proven to be a stable business model for Allied8 since we formed our firm in 2015. Additionally, our policy advocacy on behalf of Community Based Organizations is unpaid, which can erode some of our profits. Stopping this work is not an option our communities need our advocacy. Our hope is that this grant would help close our revenue gap for this necessary work. Community work is the backbone of our practice. The diverse communities in the south end of Seattle that are being threatened by displacement are the reason our firm exists. The projects we build are the direct result of partnering with community-based organizations for years (Central Area Youth Association, Brighton, Corvidae Co-op, Cherry Homes). We offer a myriad of technical skills that support communities to lift themselves. We have developed a skill in writing grant on behalf of CBOs we partner with. To date we have helped raise over $4M for local community organizations. When low-income households can purchase a home, they stabilize housing costs with fixed mortgages, and they get out of the cycle of renting where they have little cost control. Additionally, they build equity. With affordable homeownership within their reach, low-income households have the ability to build wealth for themselves and future generations. Another important aspect of our firm is intangible. We have tremendous grit. We rarely give up and as such we are able to turn projects that others considered impossible into reality. Impossible is a word we tend to ignore!