Patients aren’t the only ones getting bigger. In spite of major advances in technology and cash infusions, healthcare spaces are expanding. Maybe rooms just need more space for all the new devices that are used in care, or maybe hospital projects need to go on a diet.

This week, AIA Seattle and AHP Medical are hosting a medical forum “The future of healthcare: Supersized or lean?

The event will include a seminar with H. Scot Latimer of Kurt Salmon Associates called “Are we Supersizing Healthcare?”

Another lecture, by J. Michael Rona of Rona Consulting Group, will address what kind of leadership is needed for a lean transformation in healthcare. I’m looking forward to hearing their takes and learning more about what kinds of waistlines local architects are seeing in upcoming projects in the current economy.

While reading about Obama’s plans to pull the economy out of a nose dive, I happened upon this quote from John Maynard Keynes:

“If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank-notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal-mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.”

How long will it be before local officials start touting the tunnel option as a way of boosting the local economy by creating jobs?  The trouble with Obama’s infrastructure plan is that it seems to significantly rely on projects like replacing the viaduct that we don’t need and shouldn’t build.

Now is the time for us to lean into the fact that automakers are facing a downturn in demand for their product.  Why would we keep building infrastructure for single occupancy vehicles?

So my half-serious proposal is we go forward with the tunnel option to replace the viaduct.  Once we’ve dug out the tunnel, we bury bottles with $100 bills, cover it back up and sell the rights to dig them up.  That way, we get the benefits without the downside of more infrastructure for something we are trying to discourage.  So grab a shovel, and let’s start digging!

Maybe I’m the only native Seattleite who has found herself suddenly having to drive across three lanes of traffic to make it to a turnoff that I’ve consistently missed for the last 12 years, or who always remembers too late, on the way to my parents’ house, that the right lane ends two blocks ahead and I’m stuck in it now.

Wait, did I just miss Olive again?

Just getting from some point North of downtown to some point in SoDo is enough to give me hives: Do I stay on I-5 the whole time or is this one of those streets where I briefly merge onto 90 to get to the exit?  Or is this one of those exits where I follow signs to merge onto 90 but then don’t merge at the last minute?

Part of my driving chaos stems from my taking the bus most of the time (and vice versa). A lot of the rest of it comes from Seattle’s unique geographic layout which means there are seven ways to get to any one place across the city, and none of them are ideal.

But there are also places in the city where street signs are tiny, blurry or entirely obscured by tree branches, or lanes abruptly end or you just can’t tell if that arrow is directing you to go straight or make a slight right.  (Check out the Seattle sign gallery at Morgan Wick’s site. )

My family affectionately refers to this as Seattle sign snobbery because really the best way–sometimes the only way– to get around this city is to know it by heart. Many drivers here have little sympathy for you if you have to wait for a sign to tell you that a lane is ending.

But maybe we’re wrong. A recent comment thread over at the Times has some readers mocking those who admit they think Seattle’s intersection signage is confusing. Maybe it’s my problem. But I get lost in the city of my birth more than I’ve ever been lost on vacation.

The Pacific Northwest is seen by many as ground zero for the “green” movement and this is perhaps most evident in the built environment.

From northern California through Washington State, builders and developers are working hard to gain certification and recognition through programs such as LEED, Built Green and Energy Star for designing and creating environmentally responsible projects.

This is great progress, and not too surprising given our region’s commitment to protecting and enhancing our precious natural resources. It comes as no surprise, then, that a program relatively new to Washington State designed to protect salmon habitat is gaining momentum as builders, developers and property owners and managers look outside the walls of their buildings to address critical habitat issues throughout the region.

Following completion of the Salmon-Safe assessment, a certain waterfront sculpture park is expected to be certified (Pic by Ben Benschneider)

Salmon Safe, a private, non-profit organization based in Portland, is taking root in the Puget Sound region. Founded in 1996 by the Pacific Rivers Council, Salmon Safe has introduced a certification process for development practices that protect Pacific Northwest salmon watersheds.

In the beginning, Salmon Safe focused on certifying fish-friendly farmlands in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Today, more than 60,000 acres of farm and urban lands stretching from Marin County, Calif. to the Canadian border in Washington have been certified “Salmon Safe.”

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Seattle has taken important steps toward being a good pedestrian city. Our strategic plans say the right things, we have some excellent City staff as well as advocacy groups (Ped Board, Feet First), most streets have sidewalks at least in older neighborhoods, and so on. But, oh, could we do better.

To cross Denny Way from Belltown is to know where pedestrians really stand in Seattle – somewhere below getting cars to Ballard. At major intersections pedestrians can cross on one side only, at Queen Anne, First, Fourth, and Fifth. This forces some pedestrians to cross three streets rather than one, and creates a psychological barrier that discourages walking.

Denny has some push-button crossings too, as do other major streets on the edges of Downtown, like Boren. This means you have to get to the intersection well before the light changes. Basically you have to wait every time, unless someone else has pushed the button. This is odd given how many pedestrians cross Denny and Boren. How annoying push-button signals must be to those who don’t ignore them as I do, when there’s a decent gap.

Slippery metal grates and covers are a big problem. Many pedestrians know you walk gingerly on them when they’re wet, but they’re still dangerous. Why aren’t we covering metal with friction coatings, like sprays or tape? These should be required, particularly on hills. And speaking of slippery, how about those yellow mats they’re adding to curb cuts for blind pedestrians? Surely the designers knew that a sloped, bumpy plastic mat would get treacherous when wet.

Utility poles, parking pay stations, and other street infrastructure are often located three feet from the curb, which sometimes means the middle of the walkway. This is apparently to avoid dinging cars and the associated liability. Pedestrians, again, take second place.

Sometimes tree wells are too big, creating choke points and tripping hazards. A compromise used elsewhere is covering some of the well with a walkable mesh that allows the tree to grow without ruining concrete, but can be rearranged every few years as necessary at little cost.

The Northwest Chapter of the Congress of Residential Architects (CORA) has been presenting proposed revisions to Seattle’s multifamily code to neighborhood councils. I just attended their presentation at the Sunset Hill Community Association sponsored by the Crown Hill Business Association.

David Neiman of CORA gives an outstanding presentation about how most of the things single family neighborhoods hate about townhouses, are, ironically, driven by the effort to make them more like single family homes; a yard, set back from the street and a place to park a car.

In many respects the puzzle of how to fit four houses on a lot, with private open space, setbacks and parking was never meant to be solved.

But the off the shelf four-pack plans emerged as the solution, making these kinds of town homes profitable. Parking requirements make townhouses parking solutions, not housing solutions. Could we just remove parking and set back requirements from L-3 and L-4 zones and go from there?

CORA’s proposal focuses on addressing the biggest complaints about townhouses. If design is the biggest part of why neighborhoods object to town homes, then why not use design review to free the townhouse from the single family corset so they can be responsive to the needs of the end user, neighborhoods and the region’s need to accommodate growth.

Craig Benjamin from the Cascade Agenda spoke just before the CORA presentation about 1.7 million reasons why we need more density.

CORA’s proposal is trying to get more density through better design. The question is, will single family neighborhoods relent in their opposition to density in exchange for better design of townhouses?

Will the administrative process that is run entirely by DPD satisfy their need to get the outcomes they want? The proposal is likely to come before Council early next year.

On my walk to the Community Center, I stumbled upon these little gems called the 60th Street Cottages. I don’t know how they were received by the neighborhood, but they look like what we were talking about.

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.