SEATTLE — Sound Transit’s University of Washington light rail station has received a National Honor Award for Interior Architecture from the American Institute of Architects, one of just five projects so recognized this year.

The station’s two-level glass entrance frames views of surrounding features including Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains. It also allows daylight to reach the station’s mezzanine level. To connect the entrance and train platforms 100 feet below, escalators and a glass elevator pass through a 55-foot-high undergound central chamber. Station designers LMN Architects and artist Leo Saul Berk collaborated on a design featuring Berk’s artwork “Subterraneum,” described as expressing the geological layers of soil surrounding the station walls.

The architects' institute called the design “an aesthetically inspiring jewel that doubles as fantastic public art. A very inspired space for the public to engage with on a regular basis. They have made descending deep into the earth pleasant, full of light, color and visual texture.”

The station opened in 2016.