Boom Tonight’s Design Reviews: The Good, the Bland, and the Mystery
posted by on April 2 at 14:45 PM
Back to the Drawing Board, Amazon
The proposed design for Amazon’s fifth office building in South Lake Union is fine—for a market-rate apartment building. But for part of a massive complex on five blocks that will define a neighborhood, the preliminary designs look boring, lifeless, typical, and cheap.
Callison Architecture, Inc.
For the record, I’ve also defended certain uses of unattractive and inexpensive buildings. And to the credit of Amazon and Vulcan (which is developing the property for Amazon), these buildings are at the cutting edge of environmentally responsible devlopment. That’s commendable. But as one of the city’s most influential institutions and a beneficiary of Seattle’s goodwill, Amazon should create a landmark that will be a gold standard to which other great buildings in Seattle are compared. Amazon should define the neighborhood with something inspirational. The limitation to 12 stories – as permitted by a generous zoning package recently passed by the city council – is no excuse not to think big. The VA building on Beacon Hill, where some of Amazon’s operations are currently run, is an example of a non-skyscraper with phenomenal design. The UW School of Law and the old Sears building, home of Starbucks, also prove that impressive design needn’t be part of the skyline.
Callison Architecture, Inc.
Now, mind you, these are only preliminary designs for the brick-colored building. “So don’t give more weight to what’s in the package than you’ve seen right now. We’ve got a long way to go,” says a staff member of Callison Architects who asked not to be named. However, the white and tan buildings are further along in the design process, he said, yet those, too, induce the same chasm-like yawning as the red building. It’s not too late to turn this run-of-the-mill pablum into a legacy. Godspeed, Amazon.
The design review meeting is tonight at 6:30 p.m. in room 1 of the Queen Anne Community Center, 1901 1st Avenue West.
Green Screen
I used to cut through the parking lot on 34th Avenue between E Union Street and E Spring Street on my bike as a kid, and go tearing up the alley. Happy as those memories are, I’m happier to see the lot get developed into a three-story, mixed-use building, containing office space, ground-level retail, and a 3000-square-foot “artist/studio dwelling” that consumes the entire top floor.
Johnson Architects
Madrona’s hub has blossomed in the past decade, and this vine-veiled building will fill in an empty bed in the garden. Tonight’s meeting, for the design-review board to provide a recommendation based on previous designs, is open to the public at 8:00 p.m. in the multi-purpose room of the Yesler Community Center, 917 E Yesler Way.
Dept. of Flying Pigs
Anyone willing to develop either of the lots that have sat vacant for years on 23rd Avenue E and E Madison Street with something – anything – is good in my book. That part of town desperately cries out for eyes on the street and pedestrian activity that involves more than slinking down the street to buy crack.
Sven Larsen of Larsen Architects is designing the building for Le Madison, LLC, and he was kind enough to send me this massing of the proposed design.
Good on ya, Larsen. He says the building will contain retail on the ground floor and 29-31 apartments above. An early design guidance meeting is tonight at 6:30 p.m. in the multi-purpose room of the Yesler Community Center, 917 E Yesler Way.
One more after the jump.
High Tide at West Lake Union
The proposed development on Dexter Avenue North and Lee Street further confirms the status of arterials along West Lake Union as a burgeoning strip. This proposal, by Pioneer Property Group, would be eight stories tall, containing five live-work units, and 53 residential units.
More information is over here. Tonight’s design-review is at 8:00 p.m. in room 1 of the Queen Anne Community Center, 1901 1st Avenue West. No renderings or word back from the architects. So mysterious.
I propose that ECB take Feit's place, and the Stranger bumps Dominic in her place.
Do this.
"That part of town desperately cries out for eyes on the street and pedestrian activity that involves more than slinking down the street to buy crack."
More eyes on the street to enforce the war on drugs you supposedly oppose? WTF?
amen on amazon. i'm generally not one to care much about the aesthetics of development, especially since i worry design constraints will backfire, limit supply, and drive up places. but like dom says, when you're a big money, big name corporation with a sweetheart rezone from the city, fuckin' do something with it!
I fucking called this!
http://www.urbnlivn.com/2008/03/25/seattle-pi-profile-on-slu-manager-ada-healey/#comments
I'm going to need a barf bag, stat!
I love these posts.
#2, no.
I find myself agreeing with Dominic on the Amazon buildings, even if the color scheme is not quite as boring as most things around here.
And, actually, on all his comments today.
Good post!
@2 - it's the whole defensible space argument, as taken to one of the logical conclusions (mind you, it applies to very tall buildings as well, given it was a product of its times ....) - it doesn't mean cameras, it means windows/doors/people in motion.
@1
Dan's not in today, so your plea falls on deaf eyes.
@2 Drug taking/buying, especially when done in scary ways like buying crack at Deano's, goes away with public scrutiny, regardless of police presence. Crack dealers and smokers don't like audiences because they know it's shameful business.
Fine. I'll shoot him an e-mail.
It MUST be done!
I still can't get over how fucking insipid this Vulcan/Amazon shit is. It's the high-water mark on Vulcan's effort to bore the death out of everyone in this city. And to think that this is Vulcan's interpretation of the fucking Pearl District in Portland! Fuck me! Wait. Fuck you, Vulcan!
And Amazon! Did they bother talking to anyone else? Vulcan doesn't work alone on its developments by choice. Fuck me this is bad!
And Callison Architects! What the fuck?! I will now be staking what little professional reputation I have on the blacklisting of you guys for the effrontery of shitting this brick all over SLU on behalf of Vulcan.
Yeah, I work for a developer. This is how we talk in private.
The Amazon site is more blandly designed than the Kindle.
Did Texas Instruments have a hand in this concept?
As for the 23rd and Madison building, I agree that vacant lots suck, but so does this blobby, massive mess of a building.
Dominic, Are you actually basing your opinion on the sketches in this post? Tell me that you have seen a great deal more (or at vastly larger scale) or else I'll change my opinion of your fairness and judgment.
Those sketches are just far too indistinct for anyone to form anything but a cookie-cutter opinion.
This is Seattle. Cookie-cutter opinions are what we do.
That plus revotes.
Why arent more people who complain about architecture developers themselves, work at design companies themselves, or put themselves in the position where they create what they envision instead of shooting down what others envision?
Amazon isn't located at the VA on Beacon Hill - it's at Pacific Medical Center. Pac Med is a great building.
@13: That would require work and also skill.
I don't know what's got everybody's panties in a bunch about the Amazon buildings. I like the boxiness, the warm colors, and the big window blocks sprinkled over the various sides of the complex. I bet they'd be very well lit and pleasing to work inside of.
And how come most people who complain about shitty music aren't in the music biz? Who are they to say Britney sucks? How come everyone who complains my cock is too small doesn't themselves have a small cock? Like who are they to judge anyway? I say you walk a mile in my cock and then complain you have no shoes.
The PacMed campus is absolutely gorgeous, especially with the park overlooking SoDo and downtown right across the street. I wish I had access to one of the caretaker cottages as a little urban getaway.
uh, yeah, Bellevue Ave, your reasoning there is a bit wonky...basically you're saying that no one is allowed to criticize ANYTHING unless they are capable of doing the work themselves.
Does not compute.
And, FUCK, I hate that big ass Madison building. It looks like a suburban Sears store at the mall. It will be a cozy addition to that particular urban village...
The UW Law School and the vine-covered building in your post are ugly. ...PacMed is a gorgeous facility set upon the great Beacon Hill. ...I wish ECB was leaving instead of Josh.
Pac Med and the old Sears buildings have their merits, but they are in fact relics of a different age. Pac Med is in a "campus", and the Sears building is surrounded by parking lot. Both offer a great deal to the distant observer but not too much to the street. These buildings, while mundane, are functional. Functionality is more important than aesthetics -- and aesthetics in architecture are frequently unknowable for fifty years or so.
The Le Madison thing is very promising indeed, for the simple reason that it's built out to the corner of a triangle. Everyone thinks that the points of triangles make nifty parks, but they're wrong; they make TERRIBLE parks, terrible plazas, terrible public spaces. Buildings that fill the points make for interest and excitement.
@20 - um, why would PacMed offer much to the user?
It's on a hill. Not easily reached by road.
It's functional for what it was supposed to be when it was built.
As is the Space Needle.
I never said that they need to be in the profession to criticize, i was asking why people who criticize arent getting involved in the profession to begin with? I mean, if you care this much about architecture and the state of development why not get actively involved in pursuing a career in this field where you can make what you want to see a reality?
Anyone can criticize something they don't like but you still wont be apt to see something you do like.
and I guess I fail to see what the netagtive is in taking an active role in something you want to change or see different if the world is spitting out bad ideas maybe the world needs more people to suppky their idea of what good is.
and I guess I fail to see what the netagtive is in taking an active role in something you want to change or see different if the world is spitting out bad ideas maybe the world needs more people to suppky their idea of what good is.
@21: yes, that's why it's NOT A GOOD MODEL FOR SOUTH LAKE UNION. You really are made of lignum vitae, aren't you?
"Everyone thinks that the points of triangles make nifty parks, but they're wrong; they make TERRIBLE parks, terrible plazas, terrible public spaces. Buildings that fill the points make for interest and excitement."
Interesting point, fnarf. Never thought of that. Could you please expand on why? How?
I withhold judgement on the amazon buildings. The key factors to judge are how they interface with the sidewalk and how they are detailed; you can't get a sense of that from these images. If you represented many of the finest brick warehouse and apartment buildings around town in this very schematic way, they would look boring too. We don't need Frank Gehry crazy buildings all over town. We need solid, handsome buildings that are all about the street level, and sustainable building.
Kudos to Johnson Architects for the green screen. That looks great. I predict, because I'm in the know, that you are about to see a whole lot of buildings around town using green screens. Some new products are making them easy and cost effective.
@26
I don't know if it's a truism, but me personally I get kind of a hard on for triangle shaped buildings. The Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, or the Triangle in Fremont, and that one by Pioneer Square -- I think Salumi is in there. They always turn my head is all. I don't know exactly what they do with the space inside. I guess the corner is always a bay window.
Anyone who has spent any time at Amazon, and has heard about their infamous spartan culture would tell you that they are just continuing that mantra with the architecture of their buildings.
Jeff Bezos is a tight ass. It is how he runs his company. Even his desk and cube (yes the CEO has a cube) are made of scrap lumber, plywood and nails.
Problem is...none of us like looking at his buildings as they represent more of the boxed square lifeless cookie cutter skyscrapers that Seattle is famous for....
@16; LMAO But seriously; to all you who supposedly care so much about the City's architectural environment, do you ever break away from your computer long enough to even go to the DRB meetings? There wasn't a single public comment last night at the Amazon project Early Design Guidance meeting last night. Are you only bold with your commentary when hiding behind a keyboard?
But Sam, making a comment in public would mean that I'd have to come up with a reasoned, informed opinion (unless I'm Dennis Saxman). I'd rather throw bricks from here, where it doesn't matter how little I know or really care.
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