The Keiro Senior Center is an Asian community care center committed to providing the highest quality of care for senior residents, predominantly Japanese elders. The courtyard garden serves as a gathering space for residents and visitors, reflecting Keiro’s commitment to serving the greater Seattle community. For this project, we partnered with landscape architects Murase Associates to create an indoor-outdoor connection between the existing building and its new garden. We worked with Murase, Seattle Keiro, and community representatives to assess needs. The solution called for carving out a large indoor gathering space from underutilized offices, replacing an exterior wall with large glass doors, and installing a cedar-clad overhang that extends both inside and out. The result is a linkage of indoors with outside that provides daylight, shelter, views, accessibility and a peaceful sense of safety, warmth and tranquility. Today, the garden and adjacent indoor room also generates revenue for Seattle Keiro. It is a popular and rentable space for weddings and other traditional ceremonies.