About this Blog

Welcome to the Daily Journal of Commerce's SeattleScape blog. This blog focuses on how Seattle shapes itself -- its design, its planning and its aspirations. We will talk about what we're building, what we're losing and what we're preserving.
 
Opinions expressed by bloggers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.
 
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About SeattleScape's Bloggers

Patrick Doherty is economic development director for the city of Federal Way. He previously worked for the city of Seattle in planning and development, including managing the Design Review Program from 1994 to 2001. Patrick chaired the Queen Anne/Magnolia/South Lake Union Design Review Board from 2006 to 2008. He lives on Queen Anne Hill, enjoys exploring the city and the greater Pacific Northwest, photography, foreign languages and national and international travel.
 

 
Matt Hays has loved Seattle since birth. He lives in Belltown, walks nearly everywhere, and recently rediscovered bicycling. Matt is slightly obsessed with issues like pedestrian safety, parks and vibrant neighborhoods. He's read every DJC since high school. Since 1996 Matt has been the proposal writer at Lease Crutcher Lewis.
 

 

 
Darby Watson is an urban planner and designer for Arup. She previously worked for the City of Seattle managing the Complete Streets program for SDOT. She is a former Seattle Design Commissioner and former Chair of the Urban Design and Preservation Division of the American Planning Association. She developed her (sometimes) keen sense of urbanism riding metro from Magnolia to Franklin High School in her teenage years.
 
She recently relocated to San Francisco and hopes to share her design and planning discoveries from the City by the Bay as well as reminisce about her native habitat.
 

 
Walter Schacht, FAIA is the managing principal at Schacht Aslani Architects. He is recognized for creating strong, modern buildings that transform educational, cultural and civic institutions, and for promoting public policies that advance the architectural community. Walter is an appointed member of the AIA Seattle Public Policy Board, a gubernatorial appointee to the State's Capital Projects Advisory Board and is AIA Washington Council's representative to the Architects and Engineers Legislative Council.

Charles R. (Chuck) Wolfe, M.R.P., J.D. is an attorney in Seattle, where he focuses on land use and environmental law and permitting, including the use of innovative land use regulatory tools and sustainable development techniques on behalf of the private and public sectors and the successful redevelopment of infill properties under federal, state, and local regulatory regimes. He is also an Affiliate Associate Professor in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington, and contributes regularly on urban development topics for several publications including The Atlantic, The Atlantic Cities, Grist, The Huffington Post, seattlepi.com, and myurbanist.com. His upcoming book, Urbanism Without Effort (Island Press, 2013) will be available this Winter.
 
Nate Cormier, PLA, LEED AP is a Principal at SvR in Seattle. He earned a masters from Harvard University in landscape architecture, but spends a surprising amount of time with civil engineers. Nate is currently leading the design of Bell Street Park and the Yesler Terrace public realm. He is also a Lecturer at the University of Washington College of Built Environments, a Board Director of the Landscape Architecture Foundation and an Executive Council Member of the Green Seattle Partnership.
 

 
Roger Valdez is a former city council and legislative staffer and consultant with an interest in land use and urban livability. He produces the blog Seattle's Land Use Code. He also writes for publications including Crosscut.
 

 

 
Scott Surdyke is a development consultant who has lived in Seattle for 23 years. He is originally from Baltimore, where he witnessed the transformation of that city's waterfront. Scott has served on the Seattle Design Review Board (NW Sector), and is an advocate for waterfront and transit-oriented development . He travels frequently to other cities and tries to understand what works well there, and believes that learning from those successes can help Seattle as it faces the challenges of growth.
 
 
Jon Silver is a DJC reporter and special section editor who has been living in Seattle since 1998. He gained his street smarts growing up on the mean cul-de-sacs of a master-planned community in Omaha, Neb.
 

 

Lynn Porter is the architecture and engineering editor at the DJC. She previously covered real estate for the newspaper. Porter loves cities and the urban landscape despite having a sense of direction that gives her a 50-50 shot of going the wrong way when leaving any building.
 
She has her own ideas about zoning, transit, historic preservation and other issues involving Seattle, but thinks yours are probably more interesting. So please offer your comments, and if you have news tips, contact Porter at lynn.porter@djc.com or at (206) 622-8272.