Art Curation for a Redmond Apartment Complex: Inside the HUE Collection

Art as Amenity: Curating the Collection at HUE Apartments in Redmond

A building called HUE was always going to need art that took color seriously. When Pastakia + Associates — a women-owned Puget Sound development firm with a deep commitment to placemaking — brought us in to curate the art package for their new Redmond apartment community, that name felt less like a constraint and more like an invitation.

The result is one of our most diverse commercial projects to date: a collection spanning painting, sculpture, fiber art, and mixed media. We placed these works throughout the lobby, elevator bays, and common areas. Thus, we created art that residents encounter not just once, but every day.

The Lobby: Three Works, One Room, Total Harmony

The main lobby presented a more complex curatorial challenge: a double-height space with a fireplace, multiple seating zones, and strong architectural details already competing for attention. The solution was a collection of three works. Each holds their own while reading as a unified whole.

On the main wall, Lydia Bassis’ textural abstract piece in cream, white, and warm sand grounds the space with a quiet, organic presence. This work features intricate mark-making that rewards a longer look without demanding one.

Above the fireplace, Dawn Bassett’s circular sculptural wall piece is the room’s focal point and probably its most conversation-starting work. Concentric rings of warm wood tones radiate outward from a dark center — part target, part sun dial, part something entirely its own. In a room with a fireplace and gathered seating, it has the quality of something ceremonial. Therefore, people will gather beneath it without quite knowing why.

Across the room, a pair of framed works by Lydia Bassis — geometric and lyrical at once, with crescent forms and flowing lines in navy and cream — echo the building’s own color palette. They also add a graphic energy that keeps the lobby from feeling too settled. The teal velvet chairs below them could have been chosen to match.

The Elevator Bay: A Painting That Sets the Mood

First impressions in a multifamily building happen in the elevator bay — that brief, transitional moment between the outside world and home. We treated it accordingly.

We worked with Ericka Wolf to commission a unique painting for each floor, with every piece keyed to the paint color of that level. It’s the kind of detail that rewards residents who pay attention. As a result, the building subtly shifts and evolves as you move through it. It does not repeat the same experience on every floor.

The piece pictured here anchors its elevator bay against deep navy walls, and the pairing is quietly spectacular. The work moves from a warm amber horizon at its base through silver and cool gray toward the top — all atmosphere, all light. Against the navy, it reads like a Pacific Northwest sky caught at that exact moment before the sun disappears. The chevron-patterned wood and brass console below it could not be a better companion.

It’s a space that used to just be the place you waited for the elevator. Now it’s somewhere you actually want to linger.

The Mailroom: Making the Mundane Beautiful

The mailroom is the most visited common space in any apartment building, and typically the least considered. We’ve always believed that’s exactly backwards.

For this space we collaborated with Ink + Indigo, a multidisciplinary art studio known for their custom commissioned work, to source three small framed pieces that line the shelf above the mailboxes. Each one is a warm, glowing composition in amber, peach, and terracotta — abstract forms that catch the light and turn a functional errand into a moment of pleasure. Additionally, residents check their mail beneath work that would be equally at home in a gallery. That’s the point.

Upstairs: Depth and Texture

The upper-floor common areas gave us room to go deeper — both in terms of scale and material.

Jessica Alejandra’s large fiber wall hanging is the most tactile work in the collection and, for many residents, probably the most memorable. Cascading fringe dip-dyed in layers of cream, charcoal, rust, and amber creates the effect of a landscape in thread. These are horizontal bands of color that shift as the light changes throughout the day. Hung above a curated lounge with dark chairs and built-in shelving, it makes the room feel genuinely lived-in and considered.

Adjacent to it, a custom piece created in direct collaboration with Ink + Indigo closes out the upstairs collection on a note of quiet complexity. Working from the specific color palette of the HUE project, they built a layered mixed-media work in teal, deep plum, gold, and rose. It has the richness of something hand-built over time — because it was.

On Curating for Residential Spaces

Multifamily residential projects ask something different of art than offices or hospitality spaces do. Residents don’t visit — they live here. The art has to work on a Tuesday morning when they’re running late, not just on a Saturday afternoon when everything looks its best. Furthermore, it has to have enough depth to remain interesting over months and years. In addition, it needs enough warmth to feel like home.

Partnering with Pastakia + Associates — a firm that genuinely understands the relationship between design, community, and the long life of a building — made that possible. HUE is a building that takes its name seriously. The art does too.

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Interested in developing an art program for your residential or mixed-use project? Contact us to learn how we approach art curation for multifamily developments across the Pacific Northwest.