Deep Soul Heaven

This is not a contrarian disposition. This is deep soul heaven. This is Sir Shambling, a person I know little about except his commitment to share this music. This is amazing stuff.

LEEDing to What?

I'm one of those who subscribes to the notion that I would prefer to not belong to any club that accepts people like me as members. Being "green" is the latest club. Now in architecture there is a new subset of available credentials above and beyond our professional licenses, called LEED certification.

This organization (if you're a member) essentially quantifies your buildings by scoring points of what somebody considers a "green" or "greener" aspect of the structure. Indeed there is a LEED Silver and Gold certification, and even a Platinum LEED certification. Apparently, only certain among us have the credit available to hold a Platinum rating.

To paraphrase Gerry Brown who when many years ago became the youngest governor of California explained, "... sometimes not doing something in government is actually accomplishing something." With sustainability in mind, we are actually better off not creating any new architecture, instead use the over capacity already in place. Unfortunately, under capitalism this is very difficult to achieve.

So environmental pundits with good intentions, I guess, created a kit of parts point system to evaluate and score the worthiness of a building to qualify and carry this branded label called LEED. Presumably there is a premium. During the last design awards program (AIA Seattle) one of the winning solutions discussed with the jury that the decision making process to include some feature was... well, it added some 2 points each to achieving LEED certification. I'm old enough to remember Green stamps.

Good design is not something you score. Neither is sustainability. Its bad enough the political beauty contests that occur at the annual design awards. As a licensed architect myself, I reject the notion that I need to belong to any organization to design and behave in a ecological manner. I believe I've been doing this all along. What's my license for?

Painted Ladies

I'm a fan of the U-District (college district) here in Seattle. It is one of the better examples of neighborhood plurality left in Seattle. I temper that thought with the atrocities that have occurred in the adjacent South Campus of the University. Thats another blog post. But the commercial University Avenue is still urban muscle. They're trying to destroy it, but haven't succeeded yet.

I've admired the above building for a long time. Back in the day, it housed a used bookstore run by a long time U-District character. There were always intriguing women there amongst the musty books and a number of cats. I bought my "used" mint condition copy of Graphic Standards (the architectural bible) for an absurdly decent price. How could he do that? It was also painted during his tenure in this wonderful painted lady hippy kaleidoscope of colors. Today, as its faded it still provides a glimpse of what was a less branded time, albeit the Sub shop.

The power of Paint!

Also around the corner, the above piece of wasted lumber was for years this painted blueish grey and white slug of structure that has this weird doughnut style setback from the street. Its never worked (for me anyway) until now. The audacity of the carnival paint job almost completely disguises the problematic structure itself. Almost... Who would of thought?