Erica Barnett’s column in this week’s Stranger focuses on sidewalks. It is a great rundown of the politics of sidewalks, street improvements and today’s tension between developers and neighborhoods.

But I would suggest that, like many issues, single-family politics drives the sidewalk discussion.

Last weekend I was visiting family in Tacoma. Someone walked in and said “What is the deal; you have the last unpaved street in Tacoma. Gravel? What gives?”

A heated discussion ensued about why the project didn’t happen. “We wanted asphalt and rolled curbs. The City wanted sidewalks that would have slashed into people’s yards and been outrageously expensive.”

I piped up and said “actually the way it is right now is best for everyone, especially for China Lake. If the street was paved, it would create a huge drainage issue because of the new impervious surface. That would create a huge expense and a bunch of dirty water. The road now has much better drainage. Gravel is the way to go. Keep it the way it is!”

Everyone looked at me for a beat with a bit of bewilderment and disdain—as if I had just spoken in Latin—and then continued their debate about sidewalks.

No offense to Tacoma. The opinions expressed there are the same ones that drive the sidewalk debate in Seattle. The bottom line on sidewalks is that they are often needless status symbols creating more impervious surface which is expensive to mitigate. How about those swales?

The next time you hear someone saying “for crying out loud, we don’t even have sidewalks!” think about Palantine NW pictured here.

We don’t always need sidewalks to support pedestrian-friendly and pedestrian-safe neighborhoods. And they shouldn’t be a litmus test as to whether a neighborhood has favored status with the City.

Sidewalks add impervious surface which we have to mitigate with huge drainage projects. Let’s focus on how we move pedestrians safely, not creating more sidewalks. Progress can be less sidewalks!

Several Seattle architects sitting on a ULI panel last week said their firms had decided not to take The 2030 challenge. But it’s not who you think, and their reasons might surprise you.

"Enviro Tower" by Eco-Logikal

Sandy Mendler, now a principal at Mithun, said Mithun isn’t taking the challenge because it doesn’t fit with the firm’s goals of improving urbanism and working toward less sprawl. She said meeting carbon targets on large standalone buildings is not the way to go. An environmental challenge should focus more on what really happens in urban buildings, she said.

Robert Miller, a principal at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, said his firm also hadn’t taken the challenge. His problem was with the commitment to meeting the challenge on all new buildings. He said the wording should be changed to commit a firm to meeting the challenge “on average,” throughout all of its work.

Chris Pardo of Pb Elemental said his firm also hasn’t taken the challenge. He said on the projects that Pb designs and develops, they are choosing to design to standards of the challenge because “we believe it’s something we should be doing no matter what.”

Peter Greaves of Weber Thompson and Margaret Montgomery of NBBJ also sat on the panel. Both said their firms have taken the challenge.

“It’s not achievable if we don’t try,” Montgomery said.

I’ll talk more about comments made by the panel in a story running on Wednesday’s A/E page.

The New York Times had an interesting story this week on the promise of modern pre-fab.

Reviewing MOMA’s “Home Delivery” exhibition, Allison Arief laments that the show lauds designs that are never actually built, ignoring those designers who bring pre-fab fantasies to life (see some local examples here, here, here and here.)

A pre-fab apartment might not look as appealing behind glass as Archigram’s living pods or Instant City airships, but people actually rest their heads there at night.

Archigram's Instant City Airships, c. 1969

Speaking of the way we live, the Oregonian reported Tuesday on Portlanders tearing up their lawns for gardens. The article cites a chain-reaction that occurs where one lawn goes garden and neighbors break out spades to follow suit.

The article asks the question: Do we keep our lawns just to keep up appearances? In Seattle, a lot of us let grass go brown in summer. But when one lawn goes gleaming green, neighbors quickly follow suit with sprinkler and fertilizer.

(The article also said lawn mower fumes make up one-third of greenhouse gas emissions in certain urban areas, though the source was not clear. Yikes!)

With people growing gardens street-side, going green on top isn’t much of a stretch. The Portland Tribune reports on the Rose City’s coming green roof grants.

How do we live in the Northwest? How should we live?

If you find yourself spending too much time ruminating on these questions, consider attending the coming Design for Livability Conference, Thursday’s Envisioning the Future of Architecture, or touring Friday’s local Park(ing) Day sites. In addition to the parking spots listed there, AIA Seattle and Site Workshop are transforming a spot in front of AIA Seattle at 1911 First Ave., and Owen Richards Architects and HyBrid Architects are rethinking a spot in front of their shared office at 12th and East Pike in First Hill.

Still thirsty? Check out my colleague, Katie Zemtseff’s blog for more upcoming events.

The residential market may be slowing and the office market uncertain, but many small neighborhood projects seem to be moving along smoothly, thanks to grants and successful capitol campaigns. Many of them are seeking landscape architects and master planners.

Won't you be my neighbor?

Here are a few projects and awards that got Department of Neighborhoods matching fund awards this week:

- Create a plan for a series of small gardens, a “pollinator pathway” starting at Nora’s Woods and ending at Seattle U. Pollinator Pathway received a $6,000 award for a pilot park. Applications due Sept. 19.

- Design new playground equipment for the Cottage Grove Playground. The North Delridge Neighborhood received a $15,000 award.

- Create a master plan for a new trail system at Seward Park. Friends of Seward Park got a $15,000 matching grant towards hiring a consultant.

- Design a playground at California Place Park. Friends and Neighbors of North Admiral received a $15,500 award to help them hire a landscape architect.

- Design a new streetscape for 33rd. Ave. E. in Lake City. The 33rd Ave. N.E. Vision Group received a $15,000 grant to help hire an architect. I’m not sure who to contact on this one. Patricia Lopez manages the Neighborhood Matching Fund program and could probably steer you in the right direction. She’s at (206) 684-0713.

- Site analysis and planning for a Wallingford community center. The Wallingford Community Center Steering Committee got a $15,000 grant.

Learn more about the awards.

Portland, you make it look so easy

Portland’s historic Heathman Hotel already knew a thing or two about sustainability.

As I rode the elevator up to my room there last year, the doorman noticed me admiring the Brazilian rosewood paneling. “We have to be careful with it,” he said. “It’s endangered so we can’t replace it.”

So how does the historic luxury hotel in downtown Portland keep its cache in the midst of a changing world? It goes green, of course. Green Building Elements has a story today on the undertaking.

USA Today also got smitten with the Rose City. A story in today’s paper marvels at how carefree and car-free you can be in our compact little cousin.

Portland rocks, and many of us here have long known it. But an even better descriptor found in the piece: “studiously hip.” So true.

In addition to a bubble-gum story about hot new twenty-somethings and an almost-too-thorough play-by-play of the fall

The National Center for Performing Arts, by Paul Andrieu

of Bear Stearns, this month’s Vanity Fair has an exploration of the feats of architectural genius and engineering prowess on display at Olympic sites in Beijing.

Accompanied by some really breathtaking shots by Stephen Wilkes and Todd Eberle, the article fawns over Beijing’s “daring commissions” and “creatively humanistic design.”

An interesting point made by Kurt Andersen in the piece: The Olympics often bring a flood of outstanding architecture to its host city, but in the case of Beijing, that effort has bled into buildings that could otherwise be mundane.

Rem Koolhaas' China Central Television office building

These type of additions are usually hastily erected, while the gloss is turned elsewhere.

Like Foster + Partners’ new $3.8 billion terminal at the Beijing airport and Rem Koolhaas’ China Central Television office building (shown at left), building types that Andersen says “very seldom turn out better than mediocre.”

Andersen embarks on an exploration of the architecture and the phenomenon, complete with comparisons to turn-of-the century New York, Koolhaas “snarling” and the author finding himself an “apologist” for the authoritarian regime and its role in the transformation. A fun read.

A master plan for London’s Battersea Power Station reads like a utopian post-industrialist fantasy and a developer’s dream: a power plant reborn as dense community center by 2020.

It’s a non-local story of adaptive reuse that should result in an interesting addition to London’s skyline.

Beyond Pink Floyd

The power plant itself (you may know it from Pink Floyd’s Animals album cover) will serve as more than art deco centerpiece, with a new biofuel-powered co-generation plant in its basement sending water vapor through the 1933 plant’s chimneys. Other buildings of the plant will be converted to offices.

A transparent solar canopy will cover some of its buildings and plazas and, combined with an “eco-chimney,” will reduce the need for air conditioning.

The master plan, conceived by Rafael Vinoly Architects and Real Estate Opportunities Ltd., also features luxury apartments, a waterpark and connections to the tube. (Rendering shown above is by Rafael Vinoly Architects)

The relics of industry can tell a very important story about a city’s past glory and gloom.

Seattle’s Gasworks Park was landmarked, letting us marvel at its grotesque beauty without condos or a waterpark ever competing for our interest (though free concerts there by local legends like Pearljam have offered some distraction).

It’s interesting to look at the different tools cities employ to keep these industrial beasts alive.

Crosscut’s Knute Berger wrote an interesting column today about the animosity between historic preservationists and green building proponents.

Too often, he says, green building techniques and density goals are used as justification for tearing down Seattle’s usable buildings and squandering their embodied energy and inherent greenness.

Meanwhile, historic preservationists get sidetracked by the historic and architectural significance of the buildings they are trying to protect. They don’t put that same effort into making a sustainability case for keeping those buildings.

Adaptive reuse in Portland's Pearl District

If Seattle really wants to be sustainable, Berger says, the two groups need to form an alliance. Both need to embrace the environmental value of the existing building and build from there.

I think things get complicated when density concerns are added into the mix.

But some cities, like Portland, have done a great job of encouraging adaptive reuse of historic building stock. These aren’t the landmarked buildings that allow only minimal changes, but the buildings that serve as mainstay to new floors of condos or offices above or around.

The federal government even offers a 10 percent tax credit for adaptive reuse of certain historic buildings. There are a few caveats, like making sure the addition can be removed and the historic building is left largely intact.

It could be painful for preservation purists to see some buildings getting such a drastic face-lift. It will likely be even harder for those greenies who like to start from scratch and leave their fingerprints.

The townhouse situation in this city has gotten so bad that a Seattle City Council committee is holding a special meeting Saturday on the matter.

The Seattle City Council’s Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will hold a special meeting on townhouse design at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Capitol Hill Arts Center at 1621 12th Ave.

Scourge on society

The meeting will feature a presentation by Tom Eanes of the Seattle Planning Commission, and a forum discussion with various neighborhood groups and organizations.

The meeting is free and open to the public.

Saturday’s discussion of townhouse design follows council’s decision in April to make fewer multifamily projects subject to environmental review. It comes before its formal discussion of proposed multifamily code changes that seek in part to lay out better design standards for Seattle townhouses. Rooflines, fence heights and other design guidelines are included.

The committee has already discussed its concerns with garages that are too small for cars, driveways that can’t be easily accessed, and townhouses built on single family property lines that dwarf neighboring houses.

SDOT and Sustainable Ballard are looking for good designs for new bike racks to adorn the streets of Ballard.

The design should be tailored to one of these spots: along Ballard Avenue near the Farmer’s Market, next to the Ballard Public Library, on Market Street between 22nd and 24th Avenue Northwest, at The Locks, or next to Bergen Place.

The design must meet SDOT guidelines. Check out the contest rules and the contest Web site for more information. The deadline is July 15.