One hundred and three ~6-foot wide concrete steps dropping ~60 feet across a ~130 foot span. That’s the public benefit the citizens of Seattle will receive for allowing the development of a luxury condo/hotel in one of the most prime urban locations in the entire Pacific Northwest. As we’ve already discussed on this blog, […]
This alley off the southern edge of Harbor Steps between University and Seneca Streets is one of the nicest examples of pedestrian-oriented public realm into downtown Seattle. Except that like the rest of the Harbor Steps open space, it’s not actually public. The alley and the University St. right-of-way between 1st and […]
Perhaps rather more polite and soft spoken than your typical bomb, but totally the bomb nonetheless. As in this recent Daily Score post about the irrelevance of GDP, with the opening line, “This just cheeses me off.” Or this little gem of a title: Less Driving Means Less Dying.
But the post I […]
This is the Terry Thomas, Weber Thompson’s new 40,000 sf office building in South Lake Union. It has no air-conditioning. That is, it’s the first significant office building without air-conditioning to be constructed in Seattle for perhaps half a century. NBBJ wanted to do this at Alley 24 but the developer […]
Seattle’s average household size is 2.08, the smallest of any major U.S. city. Richard Morrill has an informative piece up over at Crosscut discussing this and other demographic trends based on the latest American Community Survey. In short, Seattle is apparrently overflowing with the young, single, wealthy, and overeducated (one downside of which, according to […]
This was the scene on Labor Day afternoon at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park on the west edge of the Mount Baker neighborhood. You can see why one commenter nominated this park for the least used park in Seattle.
Given the park’s relative isolation, the low surrounding population density, the lack of activation on […]
…for beating this deceased-and-decaying-horse cycling issue a little longer with the following three riffs:
1.) Field Report: Today on my two-mile ride to work downtown, I encountered three cars not using turn signals. Then on my way home, I saw three bikes run a red light at 4th and Pike. Which […]
[ False Creek North, Vancouver, BC ]
A new citizens group has formed to oppose proposed upzones for the South Lake Union neighborhood. The group’s desire to see South Lake Union grow into a diverse and complete neighborhood is spot on. But alas, going on what the PI reported, it appears that their […]
My urbanist geek friend Don Vehige got all excited about some pedestrian behavior he observed downtown at 1st and University and snapped the photos below. Apparently people lose their ability to read during sunny Saturday afternoons, because the construction area at the front of the new Four Seasons hotel has the biggest and most explicit […]
Leave it up to a starchitect like Rem Koolhaas to create engaging, lively, useful public spaces like the pivotol corner of 4th Avenue and Spring Street. Someone tell me how this promotes an active street face? I don’t know whether to blame the City of Seattle for being so ga-ga over the Dutchman and allowing this […]
The scoldiest urban scold that ever scolded, Lewis Mumford, had a bone to pick with Marshall “the medium is the message” McLuhan back in 1970:
But it remained for McLuhan to picture as technology’s ultimate gift a more absolute mode of control: one that will achieve total illiteracy, with no permanent record except that officially […]
is Two Union Square — at least that’s the word on the street. Designed by NBBJ, completed in 1989; 56 floors, 740 feet tall (third tallest in Seattle), with ~1,100,000 square feet of rentable space.
But there’s a pretty low bar for modern skyscrapers in Seattle, and to me, ranking them is sort of like ranking […]
If you’re looking for indicators of the chances we can turn our self-destructing culture around before the entire planet is devoured, witness the howls of “nanny state” in response to Seattle’s 20-cent bag tax. Might I suggest that this reaction is not the most promising indicator?
In the context of the ecological limits of the planet, […]
Cost, you say? Accessibility? Lack of imagination? Oh Europe and your ancient progressive ways…
It only took the PI four days to catch up with the news, first reported on the Seattle Condo Blog, that Moda (shown above) is converting from condos to apartments. How far can the pendulum swing in this direction? From the PI:
“The market and the financing conditions for condominiums have really taken a drastic turn,” […]
[ Source: Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and EPA ]
Via Sightline, the 2005 U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions chart above illustrates an alternative way cut the pie, emphasizing the importance of goods and materials, and suggesting we ought to look at ways to use less stuff. But to intelligently assign priorities, […]
Apparently my friend WB (who named this blog) has some “ideas” he wants to express. So I beseech you, esteemed readership, please pay attention to the “posted by” credit at the top of the posts.
I walk to work everyday and have, for a long time, been perplexed by why so many people don’t know how to use sidewalks. The generally accepted method is much akin to how cars and bikes use roadways. Your path of travel should always be to your right (Anyone wager on how many folks are […]
So writes Roger Valdez in a balanced little riff on affordable housing in the DJC.
“First, we know growth is good. Accommodating people in the city is more sustainable than sprawl, but sometimes neighborhoods resist growth. That resistance works to limit supply by making permits more expensive and time-consuming. Welcoming growth can help increase supply, which […]
This is the 1958 Logan Building at the corner of 5th and Union, and I like it. It was built with a complete air-conditioning system, which was an ultra-modern feature at the time. And no, your eyes do not deceive you: it has windows that open. Perhaps in 1958 people still […]
The unaccounted for:
AVA (8th and Pine): 36 stories, 200+ condo units, 190-room hotel.
7th at Westlake: 31 stories, 16 floors office, 184 condo units.
8th and Stewart: 400-foot tower, 300+ condo units.
8th and Westlake: 225+ condo units.
That adds up to over 900 housing units in projects that have been put on hold or canceled. […]
Noisetank’s greatest moment came back in 2005 when, during an NPR Fresh Air interview, Terry Gross asked Paul Anka about “one last thing in the annals of Paul Anka lore, and this is a website that you probably really hate…” (starts at 20:55): The Guys Get Shirts had become an internet […]
So then why do so many people get their panties in such a bunch about them?
But before going there… talk about Instant Karma: Yesterday I had the closest call I’ve ever had on my bike downtown. A Metro bus blew by me within inches, and when I confronted the driver about it at the next […]