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AIASEATTLE.ORG | 3
Departments
Why “Designers Making Change”
Marilyn Brockman AIA
Currents
Architects Without Borders Seattle help create a
training center in Kenya
Dear Libra
Libra suggests engaging with your community to
achieve positive change
Industry
Rachel Minnery AIA explains how architects can step
up after disaster strikes
Up Close
Rick Browning AIA interviews Ray Gastil, Seattle’s new
Planning Director
Groundwork
Jim Nicholls inspires the next generation of architect-
activists with his Storefront Studio
Practice
Peter Steinbrueck FAIA sheds light on Seattle
architects’ long history of Viaduct activism
Rim
Jeff Hou discusses design activism in the Pacific Rim
Edge
Krishna Bharathi Assoc AIA chats about community
with Steve Badanes AIA
Partner
Landscape architects at Jones & Jones reinvent the
highway
Program Highlights
What Makes It Green? Awards, Water Forum
Buzz
2008 Honor Awards at Benaroya Hall
Meet the Chairs
AIA Seattle welcomes its 2009 committee chairs
Index to Advertisers
Categorical and Alphabetical listings
Features
A Gentler Gentrification
Linda Baker asks how good design can mediate the
impacts of gentrification
Designers Making Change
Julia Levitt introduces seven young professionals who
are focusing their energies on the public realm
Perform/Transform
AIA Seattle announces the winners of the 2008 Honor
Awards for Washington Architecture
TABLEOFCONTENTSWinter2008/09
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PHOTO COURTESY OF PROJECT ROW HOUSES ROBERT HUTCHISONPHOTO COURTESY OF BEN SPENCER
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6. 4 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
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7. W
hen I was in college, I taught art in the public school sys-
tem as part of an NEA grant to provide arts education to
children in extremely low-income communities. I volun-
teered for this mostly to get myself out of the university’s ivory tower,
and to explore parts of St. Louis that I would normally be too afraid
to visit. It was a life-changing experience for me. Each week, my
teaching partner (also an architecture student) and I would make our
way through partially demolished neighborhoods, littered with bro-
ken bottles, used needles, and trash, to work with a group of kids,
age 5–17. They were black and poor; we were white and privileged.
Our teaching goal was to get them to think about their com-
munity. We asked them to draw their homes, their city, and their
world. What they drew were their dreams of what their world
should be. We learned more from them than we could ever teach
them: that design is a way to imagine the future, using its inspira-
tional language that we all share. We took a field trip to the uni-
versity; our students saw models of what we imagined the future
to be. I hope they were encouraged to act on their dreams. I was
motivated to continue volunteering.
Participation matters. The world needs whatever you can con-
tribute. Join a board or commission and influence planning and de-
sign in your neighborhood. Mentor a child in their quest to understand
buildings and the environment. Help a community envision some-
thing beyond what seems reachable. Dig wells, build houses, plant
gardens, re-use cardboard creatively. Architects are trained to believe
they can make the world a better place. Act on that.
This past year, AIA Seattle members have been recognized for
their willingness to step up to the needs of the larger community.
Grace Kim AIA received a National AIA Young Architect Award for her
extraordinary effort to build a roadmap for architectural licensure for
IDP candidates. Norman Strong FAIA received the AIA Pacific North-
west Region Medal of Honor for his push to elevate sustainability in
the national AIA agenda. If you talk with either of them, they will tell
you that they have spent countless hours in these pursuits, and that
it has been worth every minute to make such an impact.
AIA Seattle is a great place to make a difference. By joining a
committee or task force, you will find like-minded individuals working
together to make our world better. Members of the Committee on
the Environment lobby for changes in state legislation. The Viaduct
Task Force advocates for an urban design solution that benefits city
livability. The Laddership Group mentors interns on their IDP path.
Visit www.aiaseattle.org and find out what’s happening and how
to join in. You will be surprised by what a difference you can make. I
President Marilyn Brockman AIA
COURTNEY ROSENSTEIN, BASSETTI ARCHITECTS
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AIASEATTLE.ORG | 5
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The Seattle chapter of Architects Without Borders
(awb-seattle.org/) has recently completed contruction docu-
ments for the Rabuor Village Project’s Vocational Training Center
outside of Kisumu, Kenya. The RVP is a non-profit women’s co-
operative that arose in response to HIV/AIDS’s devastation in
their local community. The Vocational Training Center is the next
logical step in their continued effort to break the cycle of poverty
and HIV/AIDS in the region. The center addresses these needs
by providing training for the area’s youth, who have few, if any,
prospects for work in the area’s struggling economy.
In addition to training, the center will provide opportunities for
entrepreneurship. Students will learn applicable skills in such
areas as business, computer technology, carpentry, metal work-
ing and culinary arts, and then use the center for production,
sales and service. For example, after being trained in metal
work, a student can use the shop for a small fee to produce
goods on commission or sell them directly in the center’s retail
store. In addition to classrooms, workshops, and retail space,
the center will house a business center, a commercial kitchen,
and an internet café.
Architects with AWB traveled to Rabuor over the last year
and, with significant community design involvement, developed a
model for a site near the village. Goals need to encompass—
• readily available and sustainable resources, such as the locally-
produced and durable compressed brick
• a flexible plan that adapts to alternative demands
• mitigation of extreme heat and rainfall
• a construction design that allows the participation of local
carpenters and craftspeople.
The design and documents were developed pro bono by an
interdisciplinary team including architects and landscape archi-
tects with AWB-Seattle as well civil and structural engineers from
Engineers without Borders. With funding now secure, construc-
tion of the center is slated to begin June 2009. I
Kate Cudney and Tom Mulica currently work in Seattle at Owen Richards Architects
(www.orarchitects.com), a firm focused on cultural and community projects.
CURRENTS
Rabuor Village
Project
A community center in Kenya adapts to
local conditions
By Tom Mulica and Kate Cudney
Program Goal: To partner with communities in rural Africa
as they develop sustainable solutions to overcome the
challenges of poverty and HIV/AIDS.
AWB-SEATTLE
AWB-SEATTLE
LEFT: View at entry toward courtyard RIGHT: View from International Highway ABOVE: Phase I Site Plan
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11. AIASEATTLE.ORG | 9
DEARLIBRA
I agree: many issues that an architect deals with in the context of
a design project are societal and outside the architect’s ability to
change. However, an architect has a responsibility to mediate be-
tween their client’s goals and the public’s welfare.
You must educate your client about the seriousness of losing
mature trees. Seattle has lost more than 50% of its tree cover
since 1972, which will take decades to replace by planting new
trees. This loss of tree cover negatively impacts climate change
and air quality and affects runoff to our streams, lakes, rivers,
and Puget Sound.
But you are also obliged to do more than just work with your
clients to affect change. Because the public has entrusted you to
resolve how society builds, you also have to be engaged in your
community to help it achieve its goals.
To create positive change that will transform the underlying
condition and not get stuck reacting to single issues, you need to
accurately take stock of where we are now and then create a vi-
sion of where we want to go. As architects, we have the special
ability to observe what is and to illustrate a vision of what can be.
We can help our communities see that difference and motivate
them to act.
And you are right to remember Victor Steinbrueck’s leader-
ship in the historic preservation movement because, in many
ways, saving trees today is like the historic preservation move-
ment. Steinbrueck knew that the Pike Place Market made Seattle
DEAR LIBRA,
unique and healthy and that it was valued by the community. He
used his artistic and architectural skills to illustrate the market’s
uniqueness and raise the public’s awareness, thereby motivating
and empowering them to save the market and create protections
to preserve it.
In the case of preserving trees, the City of Seattle has set the
goal of increasing the urban tree canopy by 1% a year until it is
once again covered by at least 40%. Many other citizens across
Seattle are also fighting to save existing trees.
Join these other activists to help discover the scope of the
urban tree issue. You can assist in explaining the problem to that
city council, along with the steps necessary to write a tree
preservation ordinance that will actually save groves of mature
trees, rather than one tree at a time.
You can also attend the neighborhood’s design review board
meetings. Help the public articulate their desires and suggest
ways of resolving conflicts with the developer’s goals. Or better
yet, join a design review board or other neighborhood organiza-
tions that encourage and promote saving mature trees. I
Libra
AIA Seattle Practice/Ethics Committee Co-chair Jerome J. Diepenbrock AIA provided material for
this Dear Libra Column.
DEAR OVERWHELMED,
We recently worked on a project in which the client proposed to develop a site with magnificent, mature trees. The client’s
program to maximize the site meant cutting down about 30% of them. It seemed like a victory to lose so few. However, neigh-
bors to the site were very upset about losing even one tree.
I agreed with the client’s argument that we can’t stop suburban sprawl and save trees. I also agreed with the neighbors
that living next to this grove of trees was what made living in the city desirable. And I know that saving trees helps to solve
the climate crisis.
But even so, I felt I hadn’t been able to sufficiently influence my client to pursue a design that achieved the right balance. I
was also dismayed that the local tree protection ordinance didn’t have more teeth, and that the neighbors had so little voice
in the dispute or impact on the final outcome.
I remember stories about other prominent architects in the generation before me that had made a big difference by
standing up for their values; for instance, Victor Steinbrueck, who was able to help save the Pike Place Market from demoli-
tion. I wonder where are the Victor Steinbruecks of today? With the overwhelming array of problems facing us, how can any-
one be an agent of change?
— Overwhelmed in Olympic Hills
COURTESYJEROMEDIEPENBROCKAIA
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:24 AM Page 9
12. When disaster strikes, architects
heed the call to help
With Rachel Minnery AIA
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DONBRUBECK,AIA,BASSETTIARCHITECTS
STANBOWMAN,EXECUTIVEDIRECTOROFTHEAIAWASHINGTONCOUNCIL
STAN BOWMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE AIA WASHINGTON COUNCIL
LEFT: Assessing damage after a flood. RIGHT: Flood victim points out water level.
I
n her years working with the AIA Seattle Disaster and Prepared-
ness Committee, Rachel Minnery AIA often has been asked “Can
architects really help respond to a natural disaster? Isn’t it better
to leave these tasks to emergency crews and local officials?”
In fact, architects are critically important because of the skills
and knowledge they can apply to assessing buildings after disas-
ter strikes, says Minnery, Washington State’s AIA Disaster Assis-
tance Coordinator.
In normal times, building officials ensure their city’s buildings
are safe through permitting and inspection during construction.
But after a disaster, many or all of the buildings in a jurisdiction
may need evaluation. “Overwhelmed by the extent of damage in
their city, building officials will call on the AIA to augment their
staff with licensed and trained architects to assist them in per-
forming safety evaluations of homes and small businesses,” says
Elenka Jarolimak, Emergency Management Coordinator for
Fleets and Facilities at the City of Seattle.
In the case of the Centralia floods of 2007, says Minnery, “We
were called, gave a Saturday training on damage assessment, and
were in Centralia by Sunday morning. Centralia has only a few
building inspectors, but we added twenty volunteers to their effort.
By that Thursday, four times more buildings had been inspected
than if the local officials had been left to do the job themselves.”
Receiving preparedness training
To assess buildings damaged by disaster, one needs to take the
Applied Technology Council’s “ATC 20/21” classes called “Pre- &
Post-Evaluation of Structures Affected by Seismic Events.” This
eight-hour workshop, which is often offered by AIA Seattle or
Structural Engineers Association of Washington (SEAW), helps
architects and other building professionals develop the skills to
INDUSTRY
do seismic evaluations of buildings before, and assess damage
after, an earthquake.
“ATC-20 Post Earthquake Safety Evaluation of Buildings”
gives training in the methodology for inspecting buildings after a
seismic event. Included in the course is a review of building in-
spections from the Nisqually, Kobe (Japan), and San Francisco
Earthquakes. “ATC-21 Rapid Visual Inspection of Building for Po-
tential Seismic Events” teaches a scoring method for building
types and evaluates their ability to withstand an earthquake.
AIA Seattle will sponsor a class in Spring 2009: see
www.aiaseattle.org for details.
Answering the call
After completing the ATC 20/21 courses, an architect can sign
on as a Disaster Volunteer with the local AIA component. Once a
disaster strikes and an emergency has been officially declared, a
building official can call upon the local component’s Disaster Co-
ordinator to tap those volunteers.
In the case of the December 2007 floods in Centralia, their
building official did the initial windshield assessment and then
called Minnery to bring volunteers once I-5 was clear. “Typically,
once we rendezvous with the building official, we caravan out to
a site together,” says Minnery. “We spread out over several
blocks in two-person teams, conduct as many 30-minute as-
sessments as we can while it’s still daylight, then turn in our clip-
board reports at days’ end.”
In Centralia as elsewhere, the rapid assessment teams work in
pairs to evaluate the safety of a structure. “First you look at the
site, watching for hazards such as downed power lines, sinkholes,
the possibility of objects falling from above,” Minnery explains.
“You use your eyes, your nose. Then you examine the exterior of
10 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:24 AM Page 10
13. the structure. If the owners are around—and in Centralia they al-
most always were, cleaning up—you ask to inspect inside.”
“Some homeowners have questions, want confirmation
whether what they are doing is okay.” And while she says volun-
teers have to be sensitive about what is flood damage and what
was bad design or faulty construction, “you can still point out areas
of caution, such as floor framing detached from foundations.”
“Every jurisdiction does things differently,” she says. “It’s up
to us to apply our accumulated experience and be nimble
enough to respond to their specific needs when our help is re-
quested. Disasters don’t happen often, so people don’t get a lot
of practice with this. But we’re getting better.”
After the Centralia flood, Stan Bowman, Executive Director for
AIA Washington Council, had this to say about the effort, “The only
thing we could have done differently was to have more volunteers.”
Architects’ help is recognized
Why should architects serve in this way? In Minnery’s view,
“Other professionals do pro bono work when asked: lawyers
commonly do so as part of their practice, as do doctors volun-
teering for medical emergencies and volunteer organizations. Ar-
chitects are probably an under-utilized resource.”
In 1972, AIA formally recognized the role that architects can
play in disaster response and encouraged components to form
local response programs. AIA Seattle’s Disaster Preparedness &
Response Taskforce (DP&R) helped guide response to the 2001
Nisqually Earthquake and, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, sent
a “Mississippi Mission” team to help with damage assessments.
In 2005, Washington state passed a “Good Samaritan” law
(RCW 38.52.1951) that protects an architect licensed in Washing-
ton state from liability for damages while doing volunteer emer-
gency work under the direction of local building officials. Should
the disaster reach a catastrophic scale and trained architects
outside of Washington State are needed, the WA State Board of
Licensing has established protocol to review temporary licenses
to allow for their disaster assistance. AIA is working toward a na-
tional Good Samaritan Law.
If you would like to help:
• Sign up for the next ATC 20/21 class with AIA Seattle,
scheduled for Spring 2009.
• Once you have taken the class, contact AIA Seattle and ask to
be placed on the disaster volunteer list. I
Rachel Minnery AIA is Chair of the AIA Disaster Assistance Task Force and Coordinator of AIA Dis-
aster Assistance for Washington State. She can be reached at rminnery@gmail.com.
DONBRUBECK,AIA,BASSETTIARCHITECTS
STANBOWMAN,EXECUTIVEDIRECTOROFTHEAIAWASHINGTONCOUNCIL
ABOVE: AIA Seattle volunteer Scott Boyer begins assessing the site of this house. BELOW: Tornado damage in Galatin, Tennessee.
AIASEATTLE.ORG | 11
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14. 12 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
Ray Gastil, native son and M.Arch graduate from Princeton,
has returned to Seattle to work as Planning Director for the
Department of Planning and Development after holding a
similar job for the Borough of Manhattan. Urban Design
committee chair Rick Browning AIA talked with Ray over a
cappuccino in downtown Seattle.
RB: You grew up here. What are your impressions now after
coming back from NYC?
RG: I lived in Seattle from the end of elementary school through
high school and then I went back east to college. After gradua-
tion, I came back to Seattle for close to a year and a half. So I
was both a kid here with a station wagon and I also had a
chance to experience the city in my early twenties. I lived with
and without a car, used the bus, biked, walked.
When I lived here, Seattle went through its first townhouse
and condo period… the city wasn’t used to that type of con-
struction and it took them awhile to adjust.
I think it’s healthy that Seattle has a variety of ways to live
now, but Seattle is not like Manhattan. We are a smaller metropo-
lis and will remain so, even as the city grows. We have a different
take on urban living.
Seattle is just an unusual place: look at the things people say
and do, the things they wear. This is a non-conformist town, in-
cluding its architecture, urban design, even retail. There is some
special character to Seattle, things that don’t fit any kind of mar-
keting formula. I hope we are all working toward something that
allows that Seattle to thrive.
RB: Are there any lessons from the way NYC revitalized their wa-
terfront that you think might apply to Seattle?
RG: Once most shipping moved to New Jersey in the 1960s,
Manhattan’s shoreline of empty piers and sheds created an op-
portunity for adaptive reuse on an enormous scale. Here, the
container port is still downtown, though the central waterfront
piers, as in NYC, have outlived their freight-handling days.
I think it’s important to mention that New York put a lot into
building waterfront parks. Hudson River Park, running from the
tip of the island to beyond 59th Street, is an extraordinary
achievement. While these parks were being built, the city in-
stalled temporary gestures, like walkways with benches, a tra-
peze school. Some questioned their value, but I found it
enormously effective for creating a constituency for the new wa-
terfront. And the private sector played a big role: public-private
partnering built Chelsea Piers.
RB: What motivated you to come back to Seattle? What do you
hope to accomplish, and what are some of the challenges you
think you may face?
RG: In New York we didn’t have all the things that Seattle has in
terms of sustainable development. In some ways, Seattle is much
further along. Here we work in an environment that’s supportive of
this big idea, and I want to work within that environment.
One of the big things that’s happening is light rail. How do
you derive from it the most benefit? It’s something I’ve been
working on throughout my career; virtually everything I did in
Manhattan was transit-oriented. Redundancy is the key: you can
have buses and light rail, as well as the streetcar, to create a lot
of ways for people to get around. That’s what cities that are really
serious about transit do.
The question always is: how do you make this station work?
You want a place where people can walk from the station to their
house or to a job. There’s a way to get to the station through a
system that delivers you there. There’s an airport at one end, but
what’s located at the other stops? Where do you go once you
get off the platform? The tools of zoning, urban design, and
larger policy are all part of how you deal with this question.
Seattle’s diversity, its range and mix of densities, its stock of
significant new buildings—they are all engaging. Seattle is a
place that definitely has its best days ahead of it.
RB: Last question: I hear you are thinking about getting a bike
and occasionally riding to work?
RG: It has to be a bike light enough to carry up three flights, but
I’m going to do it. I
Rick Browning AIA is a supervising architect at Parsons Brinckerhoff and 2009 chair of AIA Seat-
tle's Urban Design committee.
UPCLOSE
Up Close with
Ray Gastil
By Rick Browning AIA
PHOTOCOURTESYOFCITYPLANNING
Ray Gastil
JIM N
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15. AIASEATTLE.ORG | 13
GROUNDWORK
An asset map is prepared, unique to each location, to identify
opportunities for preserving historic character and promoting
economic development. Through archival research, photographic
documentation, mapping exercises and digital collages, the stu-
dents generate before-and-after streetscapes including individual
building renovation proposals. Local stakeholders provide critical
feedback, helping to shape and refine the students’ work. Their
ideas are illustrated with digital alterations of found potentials,
leading to proposals for complete makeovers of entire streets.
These inspiring images show how current conditions of down-
town districts can be transformed through appropriate interven-
tion and restoration.
The Storefront Studio becomes an attraction to its neighbors,
engaging them over an extended period of time rather than
within the intense but brief duration of charettes. By allowing a
second, third, even fourth wave of participation, the investigation
broadens and deepens. Design work expands to include
streetscapes, storefronts, urban design strategies, and public
open space proposals. There is time for sustained interaction
and communication. Released from the constraint of needing im-
mediate solutions, the proposals become emergent, multi-voiced
and productively revised. The students observe physical and so-
cial fabric over time. The biggest change is often in their own vi-
sion, moving from surface observations to in-depth discoveries.
Often for the first time, architecture students successfully apply
their pre-professional design skills to difficult real-world scenar-
ios, with actual and appreciative clients.
A collective vision, generated through public participation, is
eventually condensed into a proposed Enhancement Plan. Pro-
posals act as tools for the community to use for historic building
renovation and new construction, as well as to assist in the for-
mulation and implementation of planning and design standards.
A web site, www.storefrontstudio.org, makes the studio work
broadly accessible. I
Jim Nicholls is a Senior Lecturer with the UW Department of Architecture and is responsible for teach-
ing classes and studios in materials, tectonics, design-build, and public outreach.
T
he Storefront Studio is where architecture training at the
UW meets Main Street—literally. Begun in 2003 when de-
sign studio students took over a vacant storefront on a be-
leaguered shopping street near the UW campus, Storefront
Studio has moved on to do work on the underserved main
streets of White Center, Auburn, Renton, Skyway, Kent, Carna-
tion, Puyallup, Des Moines, and Morton.
The Storefront Studio concept is to join the academic capital
of the UW Department of Architecture with the social and eco-
nomic capital of local communities, right at the center of each
community. Students begin by identifying the existing physical,
cultural, and historical assets of each neighborhood. Then,
through open houses at the Storefront Studio and design collab-
oration with faculty, students and community members, strate-
gies of preservation and development are created, ranging from
façade renovations to public art master plans. The program
hopes to strengthen the connections between community mem-
bers and their physical setting and to provide anchors for emer-
gent identities, economic growth, and social interaction.
Architecture students and faculty work in collaboration with
residents, business and property owners, city councils, planners
and economic development officers, downtown commerce and
tourism associations, the King County Executive Office, and the
Washington State Department of Transit.
The venue of a storefront, combined with digital design and
communication tools, means that within days students can mo-
bilize a fully illustrated public exhibition. The storefront becomes
meeting room, studio, and gallery. A motor pool van delivers
sawhorses, tabletops, and plastic lawn chairs, followed by twelve
students with laptops, cell phones, and digital cameras. The stu-
dio’s location within the heart of the community is highly visible
and immediate—key to the resonance of this program.
By moving off-campus into a donated storefront, each ten-
week-long studio can host a series of public open houses, ex-
hibits, and information exchanges, all of which will be used to
develop a visual analysis of the host city’s existing main street.
The Storefront Studio
By Jim Nicholls
JIM NICHOLLS
JIM NICHOLLS
LEFT & RIGHT: UW Storefront Studio on West Meeker Street, Kent WA,
Autumn Quarter 2006
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:24 AM Page 13
16. 14 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
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Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:25 AM Page 14
18. JEFFHOU
16 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
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Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:30 AM Page 16
19. AIASEATTLE.ORG | 17
RIM
H
uinien Tsai, an undergraduate student in landscape archi-
tecture at Chung Yuan University in Taiwan, has come to
help our town. She and thirteen other classmates are par-
ticipating in a study abroad program in Seattle, working with
community members in Seattle’s Chinatown/International District
to design an expansion of Hing Hay Park.
Huinien belongs to a new generation of students in East Asia
for whom design activism is a part of their professional training.
In her freshman year, she took part in the Big Tree Studio, led by
veteran design activist Prof. Chao-Ching Yu, in which students
demolished sections of the campus wall that separated the uni-
versity campus from the surrounding community.
The phenomenal growth of design activism across the Pacific
mirrors its resurgence in North America. In Hong Kong, battling
against top-down redevelopment projects, activist scholars
Jackie Kwok and Michael Siu at Hong Kong Polytechnic Univer-
sity have developed innovative techniques to identify the interests
and needs of the local community. In one project, public housing
residents placed models of buildings representing different func-
tions and services upon a floor mat marked with concentric
rings. The placements in the rings indicated their relative impor-
tance and interrelationships. The model became a powerful tool
for understanding the life of the low-income residents and voic-
ing their interests.
In Japan, to overcome the rigid social hierarchy and commu-
nity apathy, activist designers have also come up with innovative
ways to engage local communities. In the Setagaya Ward of
Tokyo, veteran community organizers Yoshiharu Asanoumi and
Yasuyoshi Hayashi worked with local homeowners to open up
unused properties to create “third places” in the community,
which can lower social barriers while providing social services to
residents. In Kogane, a neighborhood just outside Tokyo, Isami
Kinoshita of Chiba University helped organize discovery tours for
schoolchildren to identify neighborhood treasures; it’s become a
way to organize and revitalize the historic community.
In Taiwan, the rapid democratization of the 1990s gave birth
to a large number of activist organizations, including the Organi-
zation for Urban Re-s (OURs), a group of design and planning
professionals, faculty, and students based in Taipei. Since 1991,
OURs has been a leading force in preserving historic structures
and protecting the livelihood of disadvantaged populations in the
city. In the early 2000s, OURs succeeded in preserving a post-
WWII squatter settlement near downtown Taipei. The newly pre-
served Treasure Hill settlement allows old residents to stay in the
houses they built; new programs are introduced to transform the
settlement into a center for alternative culture in Taipei.
With students from Taiwan working in Seattle’s Chinatown/
International District, the practice of design activism has come full
circle. As design activism focuses largely on marginalized and
economically disadvantaged communities, there are many lessons
to be learned from the other side of the Pacific. These include de-
veloping innovative yet culturally appropriate means of community
participation, as well as engaging a younger generation of design-
ers who will one day reshape the practice of design. I
Jeff Hou is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Adjunct Associate Professor of
Architecture at the University of Washington. He is also a coordinator of the Pacific Rim Commu-
nity Design Network.
Coming to a
Neighborhood
Near YouDesign Activism in the Pacific Rim
By Jeff Hou
JEFFHOU
JEFFHOU
ABOVE: Design activists in Taiwan helped rebuild homes for the indigenous Ta'u tribe on Pongso-No-Ta'u, an ethnic
group with ancestral ties with the Batan Islands of Northern Philippines. BELOW: Design professionals and students
demanded and succeeded in the preservation of the former U.S. military housing quarters in Sanzihou, Taipei, one of
the last green open spaces in the city.
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:30 AM Page 17
20. 18 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
O
ver the past 15 years, Vancouver in British Columbia has
earned international acclaim for its high-density urban
planning initiatives. But the city has garnered almost as
much attention for its skyrocketing housing prices, which have
put inner-city living out of reach for many middle-class residents.
Now, as development pressures encroach on Vancouver’s Down-
town Eastside neighborhood, which is in Canada’s poorest zip
code just a few blocks from downtown, affordable housing advo-
cates are concerned about yet another cycle of displacement—
this time of the city’s most vulnerable populations.
The Woodward’s District project, a mixed-use complex
springing up from the site of a 20th-century department store at
the gateway to the Downtown Eastside, aims to reverse these
trends with a socially inclusive design. When completed next fall,
the $300 million complex will encompass four interconnected
buildings containing 500 market-rate and 200 low-income resi-
dential units, plus a supermarket, drug store, daycare, and of-
fices for nonprofits such as AIDS Vancouver and Simon Fraser
University’s School for the Contemporary Arts.
Instead of a penthouse, the top floor and roof of the project’s
400-foot “W” tower will hold a shared lounge and garden. At
street level, a shared atrium will be open to the public, with a
goal of creating “the feel of a train station instead of a lobby,”
said project architect Gregory Henriquez, Managing Partner of
Henriquez Partners Architects. He described the entire develop-
ment as “a mitigated form of gentrification.”
A Gentler GentrificationRetaining cultures within a revitalization
By Linda Baker
PHOTOCOURTESYOFPROJECTROWHOUSES
ABOVE: Project Row Houses in Houston, Texas.
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:30 AM Page 18
21. “The question is, can you find a way to do projects that per-
form the revitalization portion of gentrification, but don’t displace
people?” said Henriquez, a fellow of the Royal Architectural Insti-
tute of Canada and the author of Toward an Ethical Architecture
(2007). “That’s the crux of what we are trying to do, and it is the
fundamental struggle of my career.”
Henriquez is not alone in his struggle. Over the past decade,
renewed interest in urban living has brought thousands of young
professionals and retirees back to inner-city neighborhoods
around North America. Concerns about the economic and envi-
ronmental costs of sprawl have also prompted city governments
to increase densities not just in downtown neighborhoods, but in
communities citywide. But although these initiatives are breathing
new life into the urban fabric, the corresponding increase in prop-
erty values is also having detrimental, if familiar, effects. Higher-in-
come residents are displacing lower-income households, while
local businesses and nonprofits, which give individual neighbor-
hoods their color and character, are being pushed out in favor of
more homogenous, often corporate restaurants and retail shops.
“Gentrification is a huge issue we are grappling with,” said
Diane Sugimura, Director of the Department of Planning and De-
velopment for the City of Seattle. Although affordable housing is
the city’s top priority, said Sugimura, Seattle does not have ac-
cess to some key financial resources that would facilitate its con-
struction—in particular, tax increment financing. (Washington is
one of two states in the country that don’t allow cities to develop
tax increment zones, which use property taxes from future devel-
opment to subsidize new infrastructure.)
Sugimura pointed to the Little Saigon neighborhood in the In-
ternational District, where plans for increased development
threaten the cluster of Asian-owned small businesses. And an in-
flux of new development on Capitol Hill has already undermined
the neighborhood’s signature arts district; since June, rising
rents have forced an astonishing 40 arts organizations to close
their doors. “We don’t want to become ‘Anycity U.S.A,’” said
Sugimura. “We want to preserve that local character mix.”
To mitigate these kinds of problems, city planners around the
country are beginning to use zoning tools and developer incentives
to restrict big-box stores and encourage construction of affordable
housing and other public amenities. For their part, developers and
architects aim to avoid displacing existing populations by creating
inclusive designs and innovative programming for mixed-income
communities, or by incorporating designs that capture, then rein-
terpret, a neighborhood’s unique cultural ecology.
The initiatives described here, and the constituencies they
serve, are wide ranging and in various stages of development.
The common denominator is an effort to retain social, cultural,
and economic diversity and to nurture a community-driven,
rather than market-driven, concept of neighborhood.
Mixing it up: incomes and activities share common ground
The mission of the Woodward’s District, for example, is to create
a dense and diverse combination of housing and retail options,
nonprofits, arts organizations, and social services. Henriquez
said the inclusive nature of the project makes room for the neigh-
borhood’s existing low-income population, while providing much
needed public spaces, grocery stores, and other amenities that
will serve residents of all income levels. The project’s compre-
hensive design strategy received a boost from the city’s density
bonus program: in exchange for affordable housing and social
service programming, the developers received an extra
300,000SF of density.
A wide range of partners include the nonprofit Portland Hotel
Society, charged with housing the homeless, and Westbank Proj-
ects/Peterson Investment Group, which is also building the Fair-
mont Pacific Rim, a luxury condo project located just a few
blocks west of the Downtown Eastside. “For me, the poetry of
what a building looks like is only half of it,” said Henriquez. “The
other half is, what is the program? What are you building on that
site? How does it contribute to the community?”
An emphasis on local needs and context-sensitive design
also characterizes the one-block Mosaica development in San
AIASEATTLE.ORG | 19
AGENTLERGENTRIFICATION
PHOTOCOURTESYOFPROJECTROWHOUSES
COURTESY OF SARITA TALUSAMI
ABOVE: ""Carrier" Installation by Sherman Fleming. Exterior at Project Row Houses. RIGHT: "High Priest"
Installation by Terry Adkins at Project Row Houses.
COURTESY OF SARITA TALUSAMI
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:30 AM Page 19
22. 20 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
Francisco’s Tenderloin district, a dense, working-class neighbor-
hood that is also home to artists and a large homeless popula-
tion. Designed by architect Daniel Solomon, the Mosaica, which
will be ready for occupancy in early 2009, is a mixed-income
project with 93 family apartments, 24 studios for formerly home-
less seniors, 21 condos for first-time buyers and 13 market-rate
units. Shared courtyards will link subsidized and market-rate
housing, and twelve ground-floor spaces will house light industry
production and repair businesses.
These work areas, which are located along a cobblestone alley
and feature glass garage doors, are designed to meet a city plan-
ning goal of linking new housing to blue-collar work environments,
said Scott Falcone, Director of Development for Mosaica’s devel-
oper, the Citizen’s Housing Corporation. “Ideally, some of the ten-
ants in the housing units will be potential employees of the ground
floor businesses,” Falcone said, adding that activity in the Mosaica
“will mimic already existing activity in the neighborhood.”
Reinterpreting the old to build the new
Mixed-income developments such as the Mosaica and the Wood-
ward’s District can help reduce the concentrations of poverty, alle-
viate crime and, in an era of declining government funding, use the
market to help subsidize affordable housing. Other revitalization
initiatives take a different approach, aiming to create a sanctuary
for a neighborhood’s existing low-income population while adding
services and programs to enhance its unique identity. The point of
intersection between these two strategies is a holistic understand-
ing of community redevelopment.
Consider Project Row Houses in Houston, Texas. Founded in
1993 as an arts education organization for residents of the city’s
poverty-stricken Third Ward, the development includes residencies
for visiting national and international artists and a residential pro-
gram for young single mothers. When condos began to encroach
on the neighborhood a few years ago, Project Row Houses started
to build new duplex apartments for low-income families.
”What we’re doing is trying to look not only at doing housing
development, or doing cultural programming, or providing edu-
cation in isolation,” said Rick Lowe, an artist and founder of the
organization. “We’re looking at each project as a community-
building process. The end product may be houses on the
ground, but it’s attached to the idea of Project Row Houses,
which is all about building community.”
When Lowe first launched Project Row Houses, he converted
several of the neighborhood’s original “shotgun” houses, which
had fallen into disrepair, into art installations. Today, the commu-
nity’s new duplexes, with white clapboards, standing-seam metal
roofs and high front porches, “reinterpret the original neighbor-
hood structure of the Third Ward,” said Danny Samuels, an archi-
tect and Rice University professor whose students designed the
new apartments. “You have very simple housing units, which
when repeated become something much larger than the sum of
original parts.” That something is Project Row Houses’ architec-
tural representation of community.
Over the past ten years, land prices in the Third Ward have in-
creased from $1/SF to $15/SF. Brick-and-mortar townhouses are
permeating the area. “We’re not trying to compete with that—you
can’t,” said Alain Lee, director of the Row House Community De-
velopment Corporation, the housing arm of Project Row Houses.
Instead, the goal is to use the neighborhood’s comprehensive
programming—arts programming in particular—as a way of en-
gaging residents and outsiders in a conversation about the com-
munity’s sustainability, Lee said.
Following the initial construction of four duplexes, Row House
CDC dedicated another 16 in September 2008. In January, con-
struction will begin on 30 additional units, many of which will be
occupied by people who have lived in the Third Ward for genera-
tions. Funding comes from the Houston Endowment, the Luna
Brown Street Foundation and, in the near future, City of Houston
tax increment dollars. “We are not a cookie-cutter type of system,”
said Lee. “That gives us an edge when we do talk to benefactors.”
Saving what makes them special: Little Saigon and Capitol Hill
What happens to communities that have yet to develop the social
and political clout to ensure their longevity? Even as plans to rede-
velop Little Saigon move forward, the neighborhood’s small-busi-
ness community remains “vulnerable and disadvantaged,” said
Jeff Hou, a landscape architect at the University of Washington.
The city is considering a variety of strategies to enhance and
maintain the community’s identity, such as providing more open
spaces and altering permits to allow Asian-style food markets to
AGENTLERGENTRIFICATION
BELOW: The Mosaica development will include mixed
income houses and workspace for distribution and
repair companies.
WRT-SOLOMON,E.T.C.
PHOTOCOURTESYOFPROJECTROWHOUSES
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:30 AM Page 20
23. flourish on the sidewalk and in the street. Hou cites another strat-
egy he considers critical for the sustainability of the Vietnamese
cluster—“building local capacity.” By this he means the local own-
ers of small businesses need to develop the capacity to organize
and engage effectively in policy discussions with government, de-
velopers and within the community itself. Only then will local
needs be reflected in the shape of new development, Hou said.
Shoring up the Little Saigon business community and the bo-
hemian Pike/Pine neighborhood may seem like two different
tasks. But activists on Capitol Hill, which is facing a kind of arts
infrastructure collapse, are also reaching out to people who don’t
typically participate in the public process. Last winter, for exam-
ple, Laura Curry, a researcher at Mithun Architects, conducted a
“cultural audit” of the neighborhood, a process that involved in-
terviewing residents about what is important in the community,
then representing that “authentic voice” in a series of media
pieces. The results of that audit—“hole-in-the-wall shops,
grungy, not cleaned and tidied up like the rest of Seattle, theater,
dance, movies, art, gay and straight, a bag lady with money”—
are helping inform a new city proposal to create a special urban
space designation for Capitol Hill. The so-called Cultural District
Overlay Zone would use public policies, developer incentives,
and design guidelines to encourage the creation and preserva-
tion of arts space on the hill.
The role of government is to correct the imbalance created by
a market-driven real estate environment, said Matthew
Kwatinetz, a former director of the Capitol Hill Arts Center and a
AIASEATTLE.ORG | 21
member of a committee the city convened to study the overlay
zone. Architects also have a critical role to play in connecting the
values of a given community with the goals of a developer, he
said. “Right now there’s a huge gap.” When Capitol Hill’s iconic
Oddfellows Building was sold last spring, the new owner doubled
the rent, forcing out about 20 arts organizations. “In one fell
swoop, that decimated a culture,” said Curry.
The Capitol Hill process may have a concrete effect on Little
Saigon’s organizing capacity. Kwatinetz said he hopes the overlay
zone committee will produce a toolkit of strategies that can be
handed to other communities threatened by new development. He
cited the Asian neighborhood and Georgetown as examples.
An Organizational approach to changing neighborhoods
What do the projects and initiatives described here have in com-
mon? A recognition that accommodating diversity via design,
tenancies, and programming can help retain existing populations
in the face of redevelopment. They also demonstrate the critical
need for community empowerment and representation to help,
as Kwatinetz said, “steward the organic growth of neighbor-
hoods.” These projects all underscore the fundamental chal-
lenge, and paradox, of the “mitigated gentrification” process. I
Linda Baker is a journalist based in Portland, Oregon, who writes frequently on urban design and
planning issues. Her articles appear in the New York Times and Metropolis.
WRT-SOLOMON,E.T.C.
PHOTOCOURTESYOFPROJECTROWHOUSES
ABOVE: Project Row Houses.
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:40 AM Page 21
25. AIASEATTLE.ORG | 23
A
s we close in on the first decade of this new and uncer-
tain millennium, many of the world’s most pressing ques-
tions are aimed directly at designers. Young architects
are rising to the challenge by embracing a professional commit-
ment to service. Becoming involved “allows architects to take on
more of a social activist role that they can’t assume with regular
clients,” says architect Owen Richards, principal at Owen
Richards Architects and the current president of AWB Seattle.
On the following pages, you will find profiles of emerging
local designers who are building passionate careers serving
communities both in Washington State and around the globe.
The Community Builders
The Global Studio
Service Affiliations: Agros International, Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD), and Architecture for Humanity
Geoff Piper
Principal, Five Dot Design Build; Age: 33
Stephanie Ingram, LEED-AP
Principal, Five Dot Design Build; Age: 34
Matt Sullivan
Project Architect, Integrus Architecture; Age: 33
Ashley Waldron
Project Architect, Johnson Architecture and Planning; Age: 27
The four members of The Global Studio can rarely be found
isolated in their workstations. On a recent trip to Nairobi, they
worked with designers, Architecture for Humanity representa-
tives, and community members to plan the construction of a
community technology center, their top prizewinning entry in the
2007 AMD Open Architecture Challenge.
The Global Studio is now teamed up with Planning Systems
Services, Ltd., a Kenyan firm, to complete the conceptual and
schematic design. The building will house the Slums Information
and Development Resource Emergency Center (SIDAREC), an
NGO that serves youth in Nairobi slums.
The studio, which works exclusively with non-profit organiza-
tions, is in its third year. Piper, Ingram and Sullivan first met at the
UW College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where they par-
ticipated in Sergio Palleroni’s BASIC Initiative, a service learning
program that trains students to bring appropriate design solu-
tions to marginalized communities.
Designers Making ChangeBy Julia Levitt
PHOTOCOURTESYOFTHEGLOBALSTUDIO.
PHOTOCOURTESYOFTHEGLOBALSTUDIO
TOP: Team members Geoff Piper and Stephanie Ingram worked with Seattle-based non-profit Agros
International to help design and execute a master plan for a rural community in El Eden, Nicaragua in
the summer of 2007. BOTTOM: Team members Geoff Piper and Stephanie Ingram worked with Seat-
tle-based non-profit Agros International to help design and execute a master plan for a rural commu-
nity in El Eden, Nicaragua in the summer of 2007.
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:41 AM Page 23
26. 24 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
After graduation, the trio connected with Seattle-based Agros
International, a non-profit that enables landless rural families in
Central America and Mexico to purchase farms and lift them-
selves out of poverty. In summer 2006, the newly formed Global
Studio took 12 students to Nicaragua, where they worked with a
community to develop a master plan that would allow 30 families
to live and work sustainably on the land Agros helped them ac-
quire. The team helped plan and construct practical features like
composting toilets and greywater systems (Waldron, one of those
initial students, later joined the studio).
That project was done pro bono for Agros, but the organiza-
tion benefited so enormously that it now includes design fees in
its annual budget. In November, Ingram and Piper traveled to
Honduras to train Agros employees to run master planning exer-
cises for their communities on their own.
Outside of The Global Studio, Waldron and Sullivan hold full-
time positions with Johnson Architecture and Planning and Integrus
Architecture, respectively. Ingram and Piper are principals and co-
founders of Five Dot Design Build, a boutique firm whose projects
have included a luxury green home in Greenlake and the conversion
of a Madrona residential garage into a light-filled living room.
The four architects enjoy both their non-profit and for-profit
work, but they regret that the line between the two remains so
firmly drawn. They have seen how good design can improve the
lives of people around the world, and they hope to see a time
when it becomes financially sustainable for designers to serve a
broader population.
The Social Innovator
Ben Spencer Associate AIA
Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of
Washington College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Age: 33
Service Affiliations: Architects Without Borders (Vice President,
Seattle Chapter); Peace Corps (2004-2006)
Ben Spencer believes design should be considered a crucial
component of humanitarian work around the world.
Spencer has carved a niche for himself studying the relationship
between design, ecology, and community health, applying his
knowledge in global service. As a Peace Corps volunteer from 2004
to 2006 in Venilale, East Timor, he worked with community leaders
to develop a master plan and design projects that integrated eco-
nomic growth, environmental regeneration, and social justice.
Spencer remains committed to serving needy populations
both at home and abroad through volunteer work with Architects
Without Borders. And he has successfully blurred the lines be-
tween his professional work and his social interests, with a re-
sume that includes two firms on the forefront of sustainable
design: William McDonough + Partners and HyBrid Seattle.
While at HyBrid, Spencer worked with partners Robert Hum-
ble and Joel Egan and ORA’s Owen Richards, Tom Mulica, and
Kate Cudney to design the winning entry in the Rice Design Al-
liance’s $99k House Competition. Their home, which will be built
in Houston’s downtown Fifth Ward, integrates creative and adap-
tive design solutions for added value, such as movable interior
walls that the owner can adjust to suit new needs.
Spencer believes designers are uniquely positioned to create
public spaces, buildings, and systems that transform the way people
interact with their surroundings. For example, he believes that distrib-
uted infrastructure and community-scaled technologies such as
bioswales and graywater gardens can bring tangible presence to the
social, industrial, and ecological dynamics that support urban life.
This winter, he will lead his students in a project to re-imagine an ex-
isting site of industrial or utility infrastructure and its role in Seattle.
“I believe landscape architecture is poised to become a
deeply influential profession,” he says. “Its system-based ap-
proach to design, appreciation for temporal evolution, and syn-
thetic character are well suited to address the ecological and
social challenges we will face in the next 50 years”
DESIGNERSMAKINGCHANGE
PHOTO COURTESY OF BEN SPENCER
LEFT: Ben Spencer with children and community members in Venilale, East Timor. Spencer served as a
Peace Corps volunteer in the region from 2004-2006. RIGHT: During his term as a volunteer with the
Peace Corps in Venilale, East Timor from 2004-2006, Ben Spencer Assoc AIA worked with local resi-
dents to design a community center. Above, community members work together to build a bamboo
preservation tank in preparation for the community center's construction.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BEN SPENCER
PEOPLE'SWATERFRONTCOALITIONDESIGNTEAMPEOPLE'SWATERFRONTCOALITIONDESIGNTEAM
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27. The City Champion
Cary Moon Hon. AIA Seattle
Director, People’s Waterfront Coalition; Age: 45
Background: MLA in Landscape Architecture, with certificate in
Urban Design, University of Pennsylvania
Cary Moon believes the most valuable contribution designers
can make to public policy is often their ability to imagine what
doesn’t yet exist.
In 2002, Moon attended a meeting of the Seattle Design Com-
mission in which the WSDOT presented its plan for the crumbling
Alaskan Way Viaduct. She and others were alarmed by the rush to
build a bigger highway. “We kept asking why they weren’t consider-
ing other solutions,” she says. “They didn’t have an answer.”
Moon and others believed it was possible to build a great wa-
terfront and provide transportation options that would help ad-
dress future goals for compact development and sustainable
mobility. But it wasn’t easy to convince policymakers or voters
that Seattle could exist without the downtown expressway.
“I think one thing that’s perplexing for people trained in de-
sign is the question of, ‘Why is it so hard to make the right thing
happen?’ You spend your whole time in design school imagining
different possible futures. When you see your beloved city limit-
ing itself and preserving the status quo, it’s hard for designers to
sit by and let that happen.”
She decided to fight the highway with a better solution. In 2004,
she and landscape architect Julie Parrett assembled a team of sup-
porters and participated in the Allied Arts waterfront charrette. They
drafted a plan to connect downtown directly to the waterfront, rein-
vent the seawall, and build a thriving pedestrian and bike-friendly
street. The highway-less design won second prize in Metropolis
magazine’s national “Next Generation: Big Idea” competition, and
its success launched the People’s Waterfront Coalition.
The PWC’s vision has earned support from groups all over
Seattle and the respect of legislators and voters alike. In 2007,
PWC helped send a tunnel-or-highway proposal back to the
drawing board and have since backed a plan for streets/transit
options to replace the Viaduct (see related article, this issue).
“There’s pressure to engage in political fights and compro-
mise,” says Moon. “We decided to avoid that, to keep providing
that clear vision of a better future, to treat everyone like a rational
decision maker, and provide the data. It takes a lot of patience
and persistence, but eventually they will believe that this is some-
thing that can work.”
AIASEATTLE.ORG | 25
PEOPLE'SWATERFRONTCOALITIONDESIGNTEAM
TOP: The waterfront without the viaduct, as seen from Steinbrueck Park down to the waterfront area.
BOTTOM: The waterfront without the viaduct: first, a shot from the waterfront up towards Pike Place
Market.
PEOPLE'SWATERFRONTCOALITIONDESIGNTEAM
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28. ROGER ZABINSKI
MARGARET ALES
LEFT: Final voting to see what people considered the most important issues facing Kitsap County over the
next decade and what actions to pursue. BELOW: John Ales, left, working on his deck with a friend.
DESIGNERSMAKINGCHANGE
which Ales continues to struggle. He is inspired by the accom-
plishments of projects like High Point and Kitsap County Consol-
idated Housing, but he knows that even these models aren’t
self-sustaining enough to solve the enormous problem of housing
low-income residents within the city. To do his part, he has given
many hours to Habitat for Humanity and is working to identify af-
fordable solar options for his own current and future projects. He
plans to encourage more change at the policy level.
“There are a lot of issues, including land use and housing,
that builders and architects can discuss in the political process
in a way that others can’t,” Ales says, “but it takes spending time
in those areas … and sometimes even stepping back from the
studio to do so.” I
Julia Levitt is managing editor of Worldchanging.com, a Seattle-based, non-profit media organiza-
tion covering sustainability and social innovation around the world since 2003.
26 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
The Local Politician
John Ales Associate AIA
Independent Architect; Age: 42
Service Affiliations: City of Bremerton, Habitat for Humanity, Sus-
tainable Bremerton
John Ales’ experience at the drafting table pointed him to a
larger question: what role will urban design and the built environ-
ment play in coping with future social and environmental chal-
lenges? Now, by taking part in politics, he is helping find the answer.
Ales worked at Mithun until last year, helping design projects
like the award-winning High Point neighborhood. Since last May,
he has been focusing full-time on his own residential projects
near his home in Bremerton, where he has become increasingly
involved in the public sphere.
He currently participates on the City of Bremerton Design
Review Board, the Arts Commission, and the Civil Service Com-
mission, as well as the local group Sustainable Bremerton. He
made a close, though unsuccessful run for Bremerton City Coun-
cil in 2005 and is being urged to try it again this year. He was
also a state delegate for Barack Obama during the 2008 primar-
ies. “Politics is kind of addicting at this point,” he admits, “the
energy that comes from it and the possibility for change.”
As his supporters have noted, Ales’ knowledge of architec-
ture and planning makes his a credible voice on some of the
most prominent issues facing Bremerton and the surrounding re-
gion, including the future of transportation infrastructure, what
(and whom) to tax to pay for city programming, and zoning for
density as populations continue to grow.
Creating affordable urban housing to help cities curtail sprawl
and protect the region’s natural resources is a challenge with
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:41 AM Page 26
29. e
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30. On the following pages, read about the awarded projects and glimpse the process behind the jury’s decisions.
See more comments and project credits at http://2008honorawards.aiaseattle.org.
ROBERTHUTCHISON
LEFT: David Baker, FAIA conducts site visit for 2008 Honor Awards CENTER: Nader
Tehrani conducts site visit for 2008 Honor Awards RIGHT: David Baker reviews entries for
2008 Honor Awards
ALLPHOTOSBYEDSOZINHO/PROIMAGEPHOTOGRAPHY
2008 Honor Awards for
Washington Architecture
O
n November 3, 2008, the American Institute of Architects
(AIA) Seattle chapter honored fourteen innovative and, in
some cases, groundbreaking projects by Washington ar-
chitecture firms. The award-winning projects demonstrate the
capacity of architecture to perform financially, sustainably, and
humanistically, and to positively transform our social and urban
landscape.
The three-person jury included noted architects Patricia
Patkau Hon. FAIA of Vancouver B.C.’s Patkau Architects, Nader
Tehrani of Boston’s Office dA, and David Baker FAIA of San Fran-
cisco’s David Baker + Partners Architects, who reviewed the en-
tries over the weekend and visited several of them. Moderating
the awards program and jury deliberation was Susan S. Szenasy,
editor-in-chief of Metropolis magazine. The 2008 Honor Award
Co-Chairs were Bill Gaylord AIA of GGLO and Mary Johnston
FAIA of Johnston Architects.
The beauty contest is over
So declared Szenasy in her opening remarks, framing the jury
discussion in terms of building performance, context, and impact
as much as aesthetic presentation. In contrast to traditional
awards processes, which are perceived as privileging form over
function, this year’s jury made an intense effort to assess sub-
mitted projects using a full range of information, including the
limitations of client and budget and the impact of the project on
the future of architecture in our region.
Green has many guises
Honor awardees were particularly recognized for their sustain-
able responses to the challenges and demands of 21st-century
architecture. Broad-spectrum sustainability was reflected in
everything from innovative land use (Envelope House) to flexible
buildings that can adapt to different uses over time (EX3). “This
is an awards program that is moving away from focusing on ‘the
money shot’ in terms of measuring excellence in architecture,”
said David Baker FAIA of San Francisco. “It was great to see the
high degree of sustainable design. The Pacific Northwest is
clearly a leader in this area.”
Skill or ambition?
Without exception, the jurors were impressed with the overall
quality of submittals, indicating the high design standards that
make our region one of the most competitive in the country. Our
region is clearly “very supportive of its architects,” noted
Szenasy.
At the same time, in a field of solid B+ players, the jurors
were left looking for a “greater level of conceptual ambition,” ac-
cording to Tehrani. Echoing observations made by 2007 jurors,
this group of national architects missed the provocative edge
that, to them, was necessary to move the profession forward. In-
terestingly, the top honor awardee was not a building, but a tem-
porary installation that embodied the conceptual rigour jurors
missed in much of the submitted work.
28 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
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31. Honor Award
ROBERTHUTCHISON
ROBERTHUTCHISONROBERTHUTCHISON
ALLPHOTOSBYEDSOZINHO/PROIMAGEPHOTOGRAPHY
2008HONORAWARDS
7
Robert Hutchinson and Sarah Biemiller
With Jake LaBarre, Nicole Abercrombie, Dustin Stephens, Chris
Armes, Sharon Khosla, John Armes, Olaf Broderman, Daren
Doss AIA, Lisa Chadbourne, and Bella
“7” was a temporary installation at Alderbrook Station in Astoria,
Oregon. The site was a historic three-story net shed perched
above the Columbia River, formerly used for net making and re-
pairing. Existing floor hatches were filled with monofilament fish-
ing line stretched taut from the first floor to the underside of the
roof structure, resulting in the creation of seven new “columns.”
The installation was inspired by the natural and man-made quali-
ties that pervade Alderbrook Station: the movement of tides, the
light that reflects off the Columbia River, the memories and his-
tory contained within and around Alderbrook Station, and the
structure of the net shed itself. The seven columns of thread pro-
vided the opportunity to explore the notions of compression/ten-
sion, solidity/void, and structure/connection.
“7” is strongly located in a specific place and time, yet simul-
taneously conceptual. Engaging history through the visceral evo-
cation of memory, “7” extracts two innate qualities of the existing
environment—its post-and-beam structure and its wonderful
quality of light—to create a new ephemeral structure that speaks
to both but is neither. A great example of the integration of archi-
tecture and art, this conceptually ambitious project breathes life
into the faded recent history of public art.
AIASEATTLE.ORG | 29
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32. EX3 Ron Sandwith Teen Center
Weinstein AU and the Boys & Girls Club of King County
With WG Clark (contractor), Swenson Say Fagét (structural), Eco-
tope (mechanical), PRS Engineers (electrical), SvR Design
(civil/landscape), Eskilsson (specifications ), Hood Lighting Design
The restricted budget ($170/SF) of this shared-use gym, a part-
nership with the public school district, dictated the use of pre-
cast, insulated concrete panels commonly used for apple
warehouses in Washington. Together with a system of steel fram-
ing and translucent interior partitions that reveal metal stud
framework, a simple, adaptable kit-of-parts was developed to
house the club’s evolving programs. While cost effective and
durable, EX3 is a dynamic, light-filled teen-friendly space.
This project is distinguished by its strong conceptual ap-
proach to materials. Translucent flexible spaces complement the
building’s heavy, durable core functions in a public space that is
meant to evolve over time; demountable partitions and connect-
ing garage doors allow ultimate flexibility as demands on the
building change. Creative use of the small budget gave the teen
users a casual and accommodating space.
Honor Award
CHRISMEEK,INTEGRATEDDESIGNLABCHRISMEEK,INTEGRATEDDESIGNLAB
LARASWIMMERPHOTOGRAPHY
CHRISMEEK,INTEGRATEDDESIGNLAB
2008HONORAWARDS
30 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
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33. Montlake Branch Library
Weinstein AU and Seattle Public Library
With Graham Contracting, Swift Company (landscape), Magnus-
son Klemencic (structural), SvR (civil), Stantec (mechanical), and
Travis Fitzmaurice (electrical)
A central opportunity of the Montlake Library project was to cre-
ate a public place with civic presence in an established residen-
tial neighborhood. The steeply-sloped site offered the chance to
address both the civic and the residential scales of the neighbor-
hood. By placing the parking structure along the busy arterial,
the design establishes a plinth for the reading room, lifting it
above the fast-moving traffic and noise. This primary site re-
sponse also allows for a split-level entry lobby; on the ‘civic’
side, a two-story glazed lobby welcomes the public from the
commercial street, while a more intimately scaled single-story
entrance is directed toward the residential side to the west.
The resulting building has a strong civic presence. It success-
fully integrates the varying scales of its neighborhood location,
richly fulfilling the program of a community library. The simple
spatial agenda, clarity of organization, and remarkable diversity
of space render a civic building that, while not innovative in terms
of its risk or ambition, is remarkably thorough and cleanly ex-
pressed. The jurors commented on many details, from the dis-
crete way benches and study tables are integrated into the
façade to the thoughtful way the design dealt with parking. Ju-
rors also noted the contractor’s unfortunate decision on the
placement of a downspout!
Honor Award
LARASWIMMERPHOTOGRAPHYLARASWIMMERPHOTOGRAPHY
LARASWIMMERPHOTOGRAPHY
AIASEATTLE.ORG | 31
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34. Woodway Residence
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
With Bellan Construction (contractor), PCS Structural Solutions
(structural), and Allworth Nussbaum (landscape)
This previously dark and disorganized 1950s home was re-
designed to meet the needs of a young family. The clients
wanted a sense of transparency and light that would comple-
ment the serene qualities of their wooded site, and they wanted
to keep the mid-century nature of the home while improving the
entry sequence and relationship of public and private interior
spaces. They also suggested extending the living spaces out-
doors to allow for informal gathering spaces and better integrate
the house with the surrounding landscape.
With minor changes to the footprint, the architects re-
designed this mid-century home to blur the boundary between
indoor living and the landscape beyond. The resulting composi-
tion of elongated colored boxes and planar elements organizes
the house, with circulation and transparent living spaces occupy-
ing the zones between.
The Woodway Residence preserves a structure with a strong
heritage, but transforms it so completely that it has a new life pro-
grammatically and spatially that is better than the original. The ar-
chitect’s reordering was fundamental in giving the house its next
future. The jurors were impressed that a wealthy client would take
that older fabric and invest in it rather than tearing it down (a valu-
able sustainable agenda). This project stood out over newer houses
because of its extra layer of complication and program.
Honor Award
NICLEHOUXNICLEHOUX
NICLEHOUX
NICLEHOUXNICLEHOUX
GRANT
BALLCU
32 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
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35. NICLEHOUXNICLEHOUX
Envelope House
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
A zoning change to allow multifamily housing in this neighborhood left in an aging bungalow
dwarfed by larger, nondescript development. The owners wanted to replace the bungalow
with a flexible multifamily structure that maximized their investment and challenged the ar-
chitectural character of the neighborhood. The 30’ x 112’ site with 17' of grade change
challenged the design team as they sought to understand and re-interpret financial and reg-
ulatory constraints. This triplex was one of the first to be designed under new City of Seattle
regulations permitting the use of the non-conforming footprint of former structures.
The project demonstrates how designers can deal with the issue of compactness
to expand valuable real estate in Seattle.
Kitsap County Administration Building
Miller Hull and Kitsap County
Kitsap County was very interested in demonstrating their commitment to sustainabil-
ity. Their new Administration Building houses five departments organized around a
three-story lobby. A 55’ grade change was capitalized for narrow, north-facing ter-
raced floors with water views.
Operable windows, natural venting, skylights and green roofs work with nature
and for human comfort. The project's civic presence, openness, simplicity and mate-
riality result in a high-quality public building.
Merit Award
Merit Award
STEVEKEATING
GRANTMUDFORD,ALANMASKIN,ANGUSMACGREGOR,SKIR-
BALLCULTURALCENTER
Noah’s Ark
Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen and Skirball Cultural Center
Noah’s Ark at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles is a permanent interactive
exhibit designed for families that draws on the ancient Noah’s Ark story as well as
approximately 500 flood narratives from around the world. Challenging preconcep-
tions about what children’s museums “should” be, the designers developed an exhibit
design that favored clarity over chaos, utilized a wide spectrum of colors and natural
fabrics, and employed a hierarchy of vertical scales. Textual signage was abandoned
in favor of a completely interactive exhibit that incorporates the leadership of docents
of all ages.
Gym
Eric Cobb
Within the two-story shell of the former Queen Anne elementary School gymnasium—
a national landmark building—the designers have nested a series of living spaces tai-
lored to the needs of an art collector. Though the exterior envelope of the historic
structure was required to retain its authenticity, one exception was granted: tall sash
windows were replaced with two 15' tall pivot doors that access private courtyard
spaces. When closed, the pivot doors are simply large, traditional sash openings in
the historic shell. When opened, they become monumental objects themselves that
activate the space and connect the interior to private exterior terraces.
Merit Award
Merit Award
2008HONORAWARDS
AIASEATTLE.ORG | 33
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36. FRANKOOMS,BRUCEDAMONTE
LARASWIMMER,GABEHANSON
Banner Gateway Medical
Center
NBBJ
Banner Gateway Medical Center is a five-
story replacement facility providing ob-
stetrics, pediatrics, general surgery, and
emergency services. The project pursues
twin goals: accommodating the health
needs of one of the nation’s fastest grow-
ing cities, and creating a healing environ-
ment with cues from nature. The design
solution features connection to the com-
munity, a strong sense of place, and a
focus on craft and detail not widely seen
in American hospital design.
Terry Thomas Building
Weber Thompson
In designing a workspace for its own firm,
Weber Thompson wanted to enhance oc-
cupant health and productivity while re-
flecting an environmentally responsible
vision. The building reduces its environ-
mental impact through timeless architec-
tural tenets and modern technologies,
resulting in anticipated LEED Gold core
and shell and LEED Platinum interiors, a
fully passive cooling system, and 30-60
footcandle natural daylighting perform-
ance, all for $145 per square foot.
56 Piles
Eric Cobb
An earlier developer had abandoned the
site due to unexpectedly high site costs; a
second developer/builder saw this as an
opportunity to create an alternative proto-
type in multifamily building, one not based
on small rooms, two-car garages, and
cheap assemblies. Smart design deter-
mined the unit count and made use of the
tight, steep site to optimize lighting and us-
able space. The car space is smartly posi-
tioned and incredibly flexible, looking
forward to a time when the owners see
more value in a studio, live-work or party
space than in car culture.
Commendation Award Commendation Award Commendation Award
Agnes Lofts
Weinstein AU
The design of Agnes Lofts explores a
dwelling typology inspired by the industrial
scale of nearby buildings in the Pike/Pine
neighborhood. Seattle’s building code al-
lows five stories of wood construction over
a concrete base, which is the easiest way
to maximize return in a 65’ height limit
zone. Agnes Lofts uses this cost-effective
construction approach, but showcases a
very different elevation expression: using a
code exception for mezzanines that allows
for the insertion of a sixth level, which
blends the building with the attached Pis-
ton & Ring Building, newly renovated.
VO Shed
Atelier Jones
The VO Shed is a built expression of the
principle that waste creates energy. This
project is a small shed for filtering and
housing used vegetable oil as part of a bio-
fuel cooperative. Its exterior skin of RPI re-
cycled plastic embodies the concept of
reuse of existing waste. This project is a
delightful re-imagining of one of those
small urban necessities that are usually un-
planned and executed without thought.
Bumper Crop
Miller Hull
The very ubiquity of the suburban parking
lot makes it ripe for rethinking. This project
inventively co-opts the domain of the auto-
mobile for a variety of higher uses, from
food production to civic space.
Bumper Crop is a soil-less farm irri-
gated with reclaimed waste water and sus-
pended above a strip mall parking lot to
shade the ground plane and reverse the
heat-island effect. Reclaimed water from
the city sewer main supplies the crop with
nutrient-rich irrigation water, providing an
oasis in the asphalt desert.
Commendation Award Citation Award Citation Award
ATELIERJONES
COURTESYTHEMILLERHULLPARTNERSHIPPAULWARCHOL,MICHAELWALMSLEY
MICHAELBURNSPHOTOGRAPHY
2008HONORAWARDS
34 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
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38. Steve Badanes Assoc. AIA is laughing. We’re sitting in an al-
most empty little restaurant eating hot & sour soup and
dumplings in the International District, and a few of the
kitchen staff on break are talking so playfully loudly that they
are most certainly drowning out the audio on my recording de-
vice. I’m laughing too, and the view from where I am sitting is
quintessential Jersey Devil Steve Badanes—full of gregarious
humor, comfortable in any setting, sharply candid.
KB: What’s the Neighborhood Design/Build Studio working on now?
SB: This spring we’ll be working in the Rainier Valley. Next week
the architect, Rumi Takahashi [AIA, LEED AP, Weinstein A l U],
and I will be meeting with Family Services to define what the stu-
dents should do. We’ll narrow down the problem to something
that can be built in eleven weeks by unskilled students, then we’ll
determine the budget. After that, we’ll raise funds and have the
project ready to go by the first day of class. The students take
this for granted, but finding a non-profit that’s a good partner,
finding a project that can be built by unskilled labor on a tight
schedule, finding the money, that’s a challenge. In this instance,
the project is for a non-profit client and their architect knows
where the value engineering will occur. In this project, there are
places we can make a real difference: the studio can build the
fences, living screens, and sheds that don’t need permits and
can be built by non-union labor.
There are instances where architecture student labor can make
a huge difference in the lives of people who can’t afford it, but the
interventions themselves are small. It’s like acupuncture: we do tiny
little projects around the city. There’s been some pressure to do big-
ger projects, but I think the students learn plenty from small proj-
ects. They get to pour concrete and form it, they get to weld, they
get to frame, they get to complete something. They get to make
mistakes and fix them. That’s how you learn.
And there’s still a niche for us around town. We’ve become more
like a regular architecture firm in that we are looking for projects. We
do interviews like this so that people will read about us and call us.
Architects who work for non-profits are always saddled with incredi-
bly tight budgets; they can never get all the things that they really
want to get into the project. They have to edit. They have to value
engineer. We want to work with those architects who are willing to
let go of a little piece of the design, and in return we can add to that
project by doing all the exterior pieces that often get sacrificed.
36 | AIASEATTLE.ORG
Building Consensus
An interview with Steve Badanes Assoc AIA
By Krishna Bharathi Assoc AIA
EDGE
PHOTOCOURTESYNEIGHBORHOODDESIGNBUILDSTUDIO
Noji Commons in the Rainier Valley
Forum Winter 09:Layout 1 2/13/09 10:46 AM Page 36
39. communicating and slackers. We get back together in a single
group and write these on two big sheets of paper. Finally, they
get back into groups again and make another list of ways to rein-
force all the good stuff and mitigate all the bad stuff.
This is not a silver bullet, but it fleshes out the obvious stuff
that’s gonna happen, and we keep the big lists around as we
start to design. Then we break into smaller groups where people
get switched around frequently—at first three groups, then two
groups, then one. We put all the work on the table and see what
they have in common, re-establish the program and keep whit-
tling it down. It’s the most painful part of the class, but by the
end of the design process, everybody’s on board with the idea.
Everybody’s had something to say. Then we move on to the next
part where the students get community feedback and subse-
quently detail the project, then get to the work of building.
I don’t know if these projects are necessarily my projects, but
I definitely have a hand in them. I don’t believe in the Paolo Soleri,
apprenticeship-type learning, where you point in a direction and
have someone else build it. I think students lose respect for you
if you are seen as having a serious design agenda, and then
you’re always second-guessing them. It’s interesting to see what
they come up with, then help them realize that vision in a way
that doesn’t compromise it.
You know, architects look at things differently. We’re a little
more sensitive. And we have this gift: a gift of vision that we can
use to make peoples’ lives better. We can choose to use it in the
service of those at the top of the economic food chain or we can
use it to help people who might really…need it. I
Professor Steve Badanes Assoc. AIA holds the Howard S. Wright Endowed Chair at the University
of Washington and is the director of the Neighborhood Design/Build Studio. He is also a co-
founder of Jersey Devil, a design/build practice.
For more information, visit http://online.caup.washington.edu/courses/hswdesignbuild.
KB: How are your projects funded?
SB: We get a little money through the university, and I’ve been
able to raise some money from non-profit donors, which covers
overhead. There are a couple of construction firms like J.A.S. De-
sign-Build who donate to our gift fund, which we use to buy tools
and, if we need, materials. We also try to use recycled materials
whenever we can. Typically the non-profit client raises money for
materials or secures a grant, and we donate the design and con-
struction. We’ve worked with Department of Neighborhoods, and
although [Mayor] Greg Nickels is trying to gut that program, it’s still
possible to get a matching fund grant in relatively short time. I sus-
pect that eventually we will also have to raise funds for materials.
There are programs like the Rural Studio in Alabama where the
students also raise money for the materials, and we’ve done a little
fund raising and canvassing for donations. Our budgets are typi-
cally tiny for our projects. For ten thousand bucks we can do a lot.
All our projects around town are in that range and I don’t think that
cost has ever been more than twenty [thousand].
KB: The social justice issues surrounding the communities you
work in require an approach to organizing projects and students
in ways that differ from a typical instructor-led academic studio
or the top-down office environment. How do you get a group of
students to collaborate?
SB: I make a little speech on the first day. Actually, I wrote a
paper on how to do this. It’s in Bryan Bell’s upcoming book
called Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism. So I make a
little speech and I say, ‘If the idea is to make something really
cool, then I’ll just design it and you guys can build it.’
KB: (laughs)
SB: And that’s exactly what happens. Everyone laughs and I say
‘If that’s the case then, why should we build your idea or your
idea (pointing in different directions). We’re all going to have to
come up with one idea that we agree on and how are we going
to do that?’ So first we break up into two groups and generate a
list of all the great things about working in groups—more ideas,
more productivity, more fun—and a list of all the things that can
potentially go wrong—people who dominate and have difficulty
e
y
g-
re
We
di-
at
STEVEBADANES
COURTESY NEIGHBORHOOD DESIGN BUILD STUDIO
LEFT: Noji Commons RIGHT: Experimental Education Unit
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