What organizers are calling the first comprehensive conference on national happiness will be held Friday and Saturday at Seattle University.

The event brings together more than 150 professionals and activists from as far away as South Africa, and from more than a dozen U.S. states for discussions that range from economic and policy decisions affecting happiness to personal change.

Organizers see this as a way to begin to implement the United Nations’ call to refocus national policies on happiness, they said in a press release.

They said that in July of 2011, a United Nations declaration urged member nations to concentrate on “the pursuit of happiness” rather than unsustainable economic growth and to seek ways to measure their success.  A UN conference in April of this year urged a “new economic paradigm based on sustainable happiness and well-being.”

Topics at the conference include Spreading the Happiness Initiative (www.happycounts.org) in other communities and on campuses; planning for Pursuit of Happiness Day 2013 (former President Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, April 13); and developing better surveys and metrics to measure well-being.

The keynote speaker  is Eric Weiner, former NPR reporter and author of the best-seller, The Geography of Bliss, a story of his search for the world’s happiest countries.

Other speakers include Vicki Robin, author of Your Money or Your Life; local author Cecile Andrews; Tom Barefoot, director of the Vermont-based organization, Gross National Happiness USA; Rita Hibbard, director of the Compassionate Action Network; ecological economist Robert Costanza; Laura Musikanski, director of the Happiness Initiative; and psychologist Ryan Howell, creator of the Happiness Initiative national survey.

John de Graaf, director of Take Back Your Time and co-author of a new book, What’s the Economy for, Anyway? Why it’s Time to Stop Chasing Growth and Start Pursuing Happiness, said “There are those who think of the word “happiness” as something flakey, or a luxury in hard times.  But it’s really central to our identity as a country.  Thomas Jefferson was the first to use the language ‘pursuit of happiness’ and he declared that happiness ought to be the first goal of government.  In those days it was pretty hard to measure happiness.  But now we have a whole science of happiness and well-being that can tell us how well we are doing in meeting Jefferson’s goal.  We’ll be explaining how it works at the conference.”

Conference sponsors include The Happiness Initiative, Take Back Your Time, the Compassion Action Network, Sustainable Seattle, and the communications department of Seattle University.

Registration is at www.timeday.org/happiness2012.   Tickets may be purchased at the door, and the keynote address will be open to the general public without charge, based on seating availability, thanks to support from Humanities Washington. A conference program is at  http://tiny.cc/32hejw/.

Redmond-based Eitech America will introduce into the U.S.  market by September a construction set for building a three-foot replica of Seattle’s famous Space Needle.

Image courtesy of Eitech

Bobby King, Eitech America’s president, said in a press release that the company wished to celebrate the landmark’s 50th anniversary with its Deluxe Space Needle Construction Set.

“After designing and engineering replicas of the famous Eiffel Tower and London Tower Bridge, we wanted to create one of our favorite U.S. landmarks. We decided on the Space Needle because of its innovative design and engineering. Plus, Seattle is home for us,” he said.

The company said the set is licensed by the Space Needle. It will have more than 740 interconnecting steel pieces, and tools and instructions.

Eitech will also be offering a smaller version of the Space Needle Construction Set for less ambitious builders or beginners.

Eitech America is a division of Eitech, a European steel construction and building set manufacturer that creates  toys in Germany.

In today’s world of signage and ads plastered everywhere, it seems odd to advocate more. But here we are…some local cornerstones might be missing out on customers, and signage could change that.

The Seattle Center offers great examples. Atop the Space Needle, two comments from the visiting throng seem most frequent aside from ones about Mt. Rainier: kids shouting “there’s McDonald’s, with the “M” on the roof,” and people of all ages asking “what’s that building with all the colors?” The Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum seem to have an awareness issue among tourists. Many of these people are presumably wondering what to do after the Needle, and might love to know about two of our best museums, which might even get the kids excited. Some signage viewable from 520 feet, not to mention some other angles nearby, seems worth the expense.

The Center House (ok, the “Armory”) is gradually adding new food outlets. But some break a cardinal rule of food courts: you can’t read the signs from across the room, particularly from some directions, and even if you can read the sign they’re not always clear from 150′ away about the cuisines they offer. Many visitors walk in, stand in one place, and decide what to eat, particularly families. The big signs seem to be winning. They’re aided of course by people’s familiarity with brand names, vs. local sellers who might have an artsy name and then, like Skillet, use smaller secondary signage to explain what they sell. For example Starbucks tends to have a line all day, often an absurdly long one (dammit), but a little coffee stand nearby goes mostly unnoticed, though in its defense it does say “coffee” if you’re looking from the south. For the Armory itself, a little of that “M” mojo would be useful too; why not tell Space Needle visitors above that food is available next door?

The new City Target is a welcome addition to Downtown. Their signage is clear – if you’re a block away, looking up, and familiar with their logo. But walking by, even the logo isn’t as easily seen. On high-traffic Pike especially, shouldn’t there be something pointed at pedestrians, a little above your head, that gives you some indication that it’s a Target store? Maybe even something that say they sell groceries, electronics, etc.? There’s a sign listing departments but it’s flush with the exterior and in small font, mostly useful as wayfinding for those about to walk in.

In Belltown there’s a place called Form/Space Atelier. It’s downstairs out of sight with only a small sign by the street entrance. After years of vaguely wondering what it is, this blog post was impetus to WebCrawler them. Turns out they’re an art gallery, not a furniture store. Good to know. Perhaps the sign by the door could have the word “gallery” added, unless this knowledge is
intentionally being closely held, or only for people who know that an atelier is typically the “workshop of an artist in the fine or decorative arts” according to wikipedia?

Again, the world has plenty of ads and signs. Actually far too many. But sometimes an addition is welcome – descriptive, not in anyone’s way, and pointed at likely customers.

Photo courtesy of Nyhus Communications.

Northeastern University, a non-profit, private research university based in Boston,  plans to open a campus in  Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood in 2013. To generate buzz in anticipation of its arrival, it has taken to the streets with a bright red advertisement wrapped around a South Lake Union Streetcar announcing Northeastern University – Seattle.

Northeastern said last year it will open graduate campuses in several American cities. Graduate degree programs in business, engineering, health sciences and computer science will be taught online and in the classroom. Most course offerings in Seattle will start in January. For more information, go to http://www.northeastern.edu/seattle/.

Northeastern has 20,000 students at its main campus. It offers more than 90 undergraduate majors and 165 graduate programs.

The Seattle campus will be in a modest space with a few classrooms, an administrative office and a reception area.

Northeastern likes the neighborhood because of its technology, biotechnology and biomedical industry focus, a university spokeswoman said. She said the neighborhood offers Northeastern the opportunity to collaborate with some of those enterprises in research.

In Seattle, the university hopes to attract graduate students who are mid-career professionals.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has launched a competition that calls for about 80 micro studio apartments of 275 to 300 square feet in Manhattan. The city is seeking proposals to design, construct and operate the micro-unit building on a city-owned site. Seattle already has a number of these type units, some of which a developer dubbed apodments. Here is the Wall Street Journal story about the competition.

The 30-unit Avenida developed byCalhoun Properties in Seattle's University District has apartments of about 150 to 200 square feet.

ZGF Architects Seattle partner Allyn Stellmacher has been traveling to remote areas of Northern Saskatchewan to visit with schoolchildren and community members to hear what they want in the design of their new Children’s Hospital. Joined to Royal University Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan will be a maternal and children’s hospital. Currently in design, it is scheduled to open in late 2016. Saskatoon Health Region is the largest health region in Saskatchewan, serving approximately 300,000 local residents in more than 100 cities, towns, and villages. It is a provincial center providing specialized care to thousands of people from across the province.
Along with Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan officials, Stellmacher and Terri Johnson, an interior design principal, are visiting communities only accessible by aircraft, or seasonal roads, including Stony Rapids, La Ronge, Ile a la Crosse and Meadow Lake. The team has met with kids in grades 2 – 9, to hear what they would want in the hospital, should they need to use it.  ZGF said the children want to have family with them, and to have familiar sights around them.

Henry Downing Howlett is the prime architect for the project and ZGF Architects is the secondary architect.
The project manager is ZW Group. The mechanical engineers are Affiliated Engineers and Daniels Wingerak Engineering Ltd. and the structural engineers are Halcrow and Brownlee Beaton Kreke.

View a pictorial from the planning process in Northern Saskatchewan here.

Allyn Stellmacher and Terri Johnson of ZGF Architects with schoolchildren from Ile a la Crosse as they discuss design for Saskatoon’s new Children’s Hospital.

The American Institute of Architects Seattle has sent a letter to the city council in support of proposed changes in the land use code that would eliminate the requirement for parking within a ¼ mile radius of  “transit rich” areas of the city.  Go here to see the letter. You can also read more about the issue in a post by SeattleScape contributor Matt Hays.

A group of local investors plans to start construction in the summer of 2013 of a large “workforce” apartment complex near the Mount Baker light rail station. Image courtesy of Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects

Sometimes the City of Seattle does something awesome. On Wednesday, the City Council Planning, Land Use, and Sustainability Committee might move forward on reduced or eliminated parking requirements in new residential and commercial buildings in some core neighborhoods with good transit, as part of a broader Municipal Code update. Of course nearly all developments will continue to include parking, often lots of it; the point is the City won’t force developers to build it, or as much, in some areas. The Council is considering overlapping concepts by the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) and the Seattle Planning Commission. The Planning Commission link has a good map showing the relatively small areas affected.

Less parking required?

Here are some reasons reduced requirements are outstanding policy:

1. It’s about “right-sizing” parking to what will actually be used. Developers want to have enough – too few spaces and their housing or commercial space won’t rent or sell, or won’t at the right price; too many and they’re wasting money. So they’ll guess, probably conservatively in most cases. The exceptions will be developers who specifically target tenants without cars, such as students, 20-somethings, or low-income seniors. Others will build more spaces than average. In neighborhoods with precedent, the developers have gotten good at predicting demand. For example, new mid-price apartment buildings on the edges of Downtown will often build 0.7 to 0.9 spaces per unit or thereabouts, with zero required.

2. Its about affordability. Unused spaces cost tens of thousands of dollars each to develop, even before specific site challenges such as inefficient geometries or groundwater. That’s a huge added cost shared by the developer (if the project pencils at all) and the residents of the building. Skipping that cost is a big help for providing new housing at reasonable cost. Regarding the lower price points not covered by subsidy, all housing tends to move downmarket over the decades; the units we’re talking about will drop at a similar pace from a lower starting point (or more quickly if you believe these units won’t be in demand). Also, with less parking architects can design more housing units or commercial space on a given site, which ought to reduce land costs per unit, even if the land itself is worth slightly more because it’s more developable. (Some detractors claim developers won’t pass the savings along, but when developers and building owners compete against each other, of course they’ll compete on price.)

3. It’s not a big reduction. The reduced requirements only apply to new buildings (obviously!). Even decades from now, most housing will still date to the years when parking was required for all units nearly everywhere. Mix in some buildings with ratios like 0.8 and the average won’t drop much. Tenants will self-select, with the car-less not paying extra for parking and those with cars choosing to pay their way. Detractors claim street parking will be jammed…not relevant if developers meet their targets, and a self-limiting factor regardless.

4. It’s about equality. Currently, people without cars are generally required to pay for parking they don’t use, effectively subsidizing the people who do use it. With reduced parking ratios, most owners will rent parking separately, and pay their own way – they’ll pay about what they do now, and the rest of us will pay less.

5. It’s already working. Much of greater Downtown hasn’t required parking in decades. Other districts reduced or eliminated their requirements more recently. So we’re seeing a lot of more reasonable ratios in those areas, balancing cost and demand. It’s the free market at work. Since there’s precedent, developers can see how a price point, unit size, and location translates, on average, into a number of parking spaces that will be used, meaning they can predict demand with decent accuracy.

Please pass this, Council!

Generally it’s a good idea to focus transit service on trunk lines, to put the service where the most riders are. So, generally, King County Metro should be congratulated for its proposed route changes.

But that’s not the only priority. While nobody expects Metro to go everywhere, it shouldn’t cut entire neighborhoods off, particularly job centers where workers have grown to rely upon transit, which benefits all of us as well as the riders. Outside the major nodes it’s ok to ask people to walk, in excess of a half-mile in some cases, but how much beyond that is ok?

Harbor Island is about to lose its service entirely outside of the SW Spokane Street corridor at the south end. It’s more than a mile from there to the northern-most employers such as Vigor Marine and Crowley, much of it not particularly safe or comfortable, particularly in the dark. Today Route 35 runs two buses each rush hour (none the rest of the time), a bit

Photo courtesy of King County Department of Transportation

The current riders don’t want much, or so says the one who inspired this post — just a couple trips up the island at rush hour, ideally including one a little later than the current 4:09. Something a few blocks from work rather than the solid mile.

Solutions might be a special looping version of Route 50 a couple times per rush hour (either in addition to or instead of the main 50), or a separate rush hour shuttle connecting from the 50 to the north end of the island. Neither would be free, but either would be cheap vs. deleting a whole district from service.

Transit should help the the city function well, and parallel our regional strategy. Harbor Island packs a lot of economic punch, cramming in a lot of seaport and industry uses. It’s done this for generations. We’re not talking about leapfrogging new development and expecting new public services to cover it. This is about serving what’s existed for generations, and an existing community of riders.

Please don’t cut off this community.