Just took a ride on the Seattle Streetcar!, and as we started at Westlake and Stewart, and immediately stopped at Westlake and Stewart, then started, and immediately stopped at Westlake and 6th, then started, and immediately stopped at Westlake and Virginia St, then started, and immediately stopped at Westlake and 7th,… you get the picture…I […]
In celebration of the Seattle City Council’s historically decisive vote to “continue considering” the annexation of the North Highline area, two images from White Center. Now don’t get me wrong — I’m not meaning to get all urban-elite-snob on White Center. Pics like these could easily have been taken in Seattle (my next door neighbor’s back […]
In an effort to preserve industry in Seattle, the City just passed legislation limiting the size of non-industrial uses in industrial zones. Retail uses are limited to 25,000 square feet, which is roughly half the size of a modern Safeway, and one-seventh the size of the titanic 175,000-square-foot Costco on 4th Ave S., which is […]
Found this SFPD bicycle training video while perusing the interweb at work. I’m particularly fond of how it encourages cyclist to take the lane on roads lacking bike lanes.
Speaking of commodifying dissent, thank you sprizee. (And sadly no, you didn’t see it here first…)
Knowing that buildings account for about half of CO2 emissions, what to do? Most buildings live a long time — 50 to 100 years or more. Thus one might assume it’s unrealistic to expect any significant short-term reduction in CO2 emissions could be achieved by making new buildings more energy efficient, simply because there will […]
 View of South Lake Union (courtesy of Seattle Times) Vulcan, Inc wants the City to increase height limits in South Lake Union from 65 and 85 FT to 160 FT to allow for 12-story buildings that would accommodate Amazon when they move from their Beacon Hill and Columbia Tower locations. The City is moving […]
Condos are bad, bad BAD! *Post title courtesy of smartypants author Thomas Frank.
Assuming any sort of grip on reality, the debate is over: Take it out, don’t replace it. This week brings news suggesting that reality may finally be sinking in: The City, County, and State DOTs have all agreed to evaluate the Surface/Transit Option (though they’re not calling it that). Meanwhile, a 29 member stakeholder committee […]
Modular housing in Seattle – is it the right time and place? Inhabit is a Unico demonstration project of modular housing…pretty neat if not a little heavy on the Scandinavian interior design. This kind of modular multifamily housing would likely be cheaper than typical multi-family housing, but they did not have any cost estimates when […]
All that stuff shown above is a proposed $300 million development with 550 housing units, 650,000 square feet of retail space, and 2300 parking stalls, on a 10-acre site at Dearborn and Rainier, currently occupied by Goodwill. It’s a big one, guaranteed to be controversial, and interestingly, the two most vocal citizens groups have come […]
Lots of people bash them, but at the same time, lots of people are buying them. And as with SUVs, much of the bashing is justified. But some help could be on the way: the scourge of the townhouses is on the radar of Seattle city planners who are updating multifamily zoning code. But looky, […]
Each colored square on the map is a project that is permitted, under construction, or recently completed. If you have a hankering to get the lowdown on a project, visit the Seattle Downtown Association and click away.
Just as I’m about to brilliantly blog my “new” idea of “micro retail”, prompted by the mourning over violent neighborhood change such as 500 Pine, someone has gone ahead and actually proposed it in a real project. So much for looking clever. Here’s the idea posed as a question: Is there a way for a […]
For real. Masdar: A zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city on 1500 acres, 20 miles outside Abu Dhabi, the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates. The city will be home to 45,000 people and 60,000 jobs. They are applying pretty much every sustainable design strategy there is — read the links. Even the construction process […]
Holding the corner, all clean and simple, somehow just the right proportions. Located at 12th and Pike on Capitol Hill, formerly a surface parking lot. Designed by Weinstein A|U, developed by Dunn + Hobbes. How nice to see a new mixed-use building without a bulky brick storefront base. And it’s apartments, not condos. Could this […]
Lofty visions of the future… Proposed mixed-use building at 14th and Union.
In response to this previous post noting that buildings account for roughly half of energy use in the U.S. and therefore half of CO2 emissions, the astute reader might be inclined to point out that here in Seattle we get about 89% (or is it 86%?) of our electricity from carbon-free hydro, and thus our […]
