City Comforts, the blog

Thank god

With a new home and new art, will museum gain new profile?

But in an age when museums around the world are erecting architectural landmarks to cement their public image, Seattle Art Musem (SAM) gave up a critical chance to build an iconic, freestanding museum.

Wisdom.

It's interesting to see how public expectation drives clients to starchiteture. Here you have an art critic pushing the institution to do something "iconic" — which means name-brand architect who can put the museum — and its associated cheer-leaders — on the map, even if its collection is young. The very headline of the story is not about art but about public relations and fame.

Whether SAM meant to or not, it has made the right & urbane choice to be part of the city.

 

A denialist poses a question:

Concerning Global Warming and "Beachfront Property

"...if believers in global warming are so certain that it is going to occur that they are willing to impose taxes and other coercion in order to combat it, why aren't they buying up all the land 300 yards or so from the current beach, or wherever they expect the sea level to rise to in the future?  Shouldn't Al Gore be cornering the market on coastal land twenty feet above today's sea level?"

Commenters provide devastating answers.

Thank god for adults

(and a reminder to cynics that elections do matter): Sonics Basketball Team Owner floats idea of Las Vegas Sonics.

Not all politicians are quaking in their boots:

House Speaker Frank Chopp, speaking this week to The Seattle Times editorial board, remained unsympathetic. "They already have a place to play. It's nice. There are no potholes in the court there. Every player has health care. They all had the opportunity to go to college. Let's get real here. If they want to do it, we're not stopping them. They can pay for it themselves," said Chopp, D-Seattle.

How to make Manhattan even more attractive and hence more valuable

Propose a Fee for Driving Into Manhattan.

The critics make little sense:

"Clayton Boyce, a spokesman for the American Trucking Association, a national industry group, told The Associated Press, “It will be a real problem for operations for trucking companies and shippers, including all the retailers in Manhattan, which is substantial.”

In fact truckers should be the loudest cheer-leaders. 

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Inspired by Vox Baby via Felix Salmon

One hand washes the other

Local left-winger raises profile and importance of local right-winger.

More on the NYT Dream Blog "architectural drawings ownership" issue

A lawyer in Boston opines on Who Holds the Rights in the Design of a Building?. My own comment on the lawyer's blog (which I note has not been approved):

I too have been following the Dream Home blog with fascination...like watching an acquaintance walking a tight-rope with eyes closed. And I was particularly interested in the whole discussion of "ownership" of the drawings. Over the years I have hireed many architects and that clause has always annoyed me as I usually have a large and very productive contribution to the design. So "the design" is in fact very much mine. But I gave up arguing about the whole re-use of plans business because I found "ownership" of the plans to be a non-issue. It really doesn't matter, except in very unusual circiumstances.

First of all, you can't copyright a site-plan and/or floor-plan.

Second, rarely, if ever, re-uses plans exactly as originally drawn. It just doesn't happen. So why argue about it? Most urban commercial buildings are so "one-off" that it makes no sense to make it an issue.

Third, if you do have a repeatable design — say a small commercial building which could simply be adapted to another site with only re-arrangement (if that) of parking etc and utilities — a smart architect who did the original plans will charge only the real, legitimate cost of re-drawing. If they don't, they have lost a client and you march merrily down the road to a new architect and have them re-draw it, changing only enough to make sure that architect # 1 has no legal much less moral case. Yes, you do have to pay for repeating some drafting. But that is trivial.

Overall, I see the "ownership" issue as an ego-driven non-issue. Where am I wrong?

One other point. It's only when you come to starchitecture that this issue is even remotely germane. As I don't like startchitecture in general or for my own projects I don't give a rip. Would I really want to do a knock-off of a Koolhaas or Gehry design? Don't make me laugh. I like ordinary, banal site plans and massings which are made brilliant by materials, detailing, colors, plantings etc. I don't buy freakitecture. My whole problem with the NYT couple doing the Dream Home blog is their naive insistence on having a "special and unique" house. Every time I see such a demand I think of what (architect) Jim Cutler told me years ago when a sketch he did for me looked very much like the sketch from the modular home company: "Dave, there are certain truths about floor plans."

Another attack on "modernism"

Nathan Glaser's new book is reviewed by Fred Siegel. I am generally sympathetic to their argument. But the critique confuses architectural style just a bit too much with site plan.

The problem with modern architecture is primarily its site plan not the lack of columns.

An example is Cincinnati's new museum (by mod-darling Zaha Hadid). It is architecturally modern (say "wild" and "daring" breathlessly) but simultaneously traditional in site plan. It creates what appears (from photos) to be a fine urban building which enfronts and is permeable to the sidewalk.

Critique of modernism would be more powerful if it distinguished between modernist architecture and modernist site plan.

I can't really grasp it

$15 billion pay for top 25 hedge fund managers.

The combined earnings of the world's top 25 hedge fund managers of more than $14 billion exceeded the national income of Jordan last year and three individuals took home more than $1 billion, according to the biggest annual industry survey.

The survey by Alpha Magazine put Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies on earnings of $1.7 billion, Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group on $1.4 billion and Eddie Lampert of ESL Investments on $1.3 billion. The previous year, two managers, Mr Simons and the septuagenarian T Boone Pickens of BP Capital Management, topped the $1 billion mark.

The ability of individuals to generate so much capital flow in their own personal direction staggers me. Either the volume and/or the percentage return are so far beyond the numbers I ever even hear about as to be breathtaking.

For example, I know the names of a few of shrewd & hard-working commercial real estate brokers here in Seattle who (I surmise) probably sell a hundred million dollars of real estate in a typically good year. That means a personal income to the individual of perhaps $2-3 million dollars a year, after the commissions are split with "the house" and the other broker. That's a lot of money and they work fairly hard for it...at least 40 hours a week. I commend them.

So consider the scale of making a billion dollars a year. Both the scale of the transaction and the percentage which the individual draws from the transaction (they are all transaction-based, I am sure) are wildly beyond my own personal imagination.

That's not the way I remember it

So, Mr. Hitchens, weren't you wrong about Iraq?

Was it then correct to send military forces to the Gulf, in case Saddam continued his long policy of defiance, concealment, and expulsion or obstruction of U.N. inspectors?

If you understand the history of the inspection process at all, you must concede that Saddam would never have agreed to readmit the inspectors if coalition forces had not made their appearance on his borders and in the waters of the Gulf. It was never a choice between inspection and intervention: It was only the believable threat of an intervention that enabled even limited inspections to resume.

I don't concede that at all. As I remember it, Saddam had announced that the inspectors could return (and with no restrictions, he claimed) long before the troops were sent. It was a strategic blunder of the highest order for the USA to have spurned the offer. Imagine ten thousand UN inspectors wandering around Iraq in their conspicuously-marked vehicles. Such a  show of international force would have had a corrosive effect on Hussein's prestige and power; it would be obvious that he had been rolled. And had he then refused to allow inspectors to look wherever they wanted, such refusal would have been a legitimate casus belli.

Another one for the "to read" list

Tipon: Water Engineering Masterpiece of the Inca Empire:

Tipon is a little-known jewel of the Inca Empire...Located by the imperial capital of Cusco (now in Peru), the historic 500-acre, self-contained, walled settlement served as an estate for Inca nobility. For more than 450 years, it was farmed and partially irrigated, and it remains an amazing civil engineering achievement showcasing Inca mastery of irrigation and hydraulic technology.

Another one of those unanticipated impacts

One of those weird little ironies about the whole growth management issue (and which no NIMBY seems to notice or admit) is that there is no escape except poverty.

If you implement draconian restrictions on growth to keep out the undesirables you make your city or town all the more attractive...the snob-value/forbidden-fruit syndrome. You get intense competition to be in this rare spot. Housing prices go up and only the wealthy can live there.

And then of course if you plan to accomodate (albeit perhaps grudgingly) a growing population and invest in a  civic infrastructure of parks, transportation facilities of all kinds, schools, museums, etcetera then you do indeed make your area more attractive and, yes, you get growth from that direction.

The only solution is a stagnant economy, led by a small reactionary elite which is unwilling to see change, to share the fruits of a dynamic economy and which is happy to keep its people barefoot and uneducated. So if you are really against growth in every way and can see no way to accommodate it gracefully, vote for poverty. OK, I exaggerate, but you get the idea. Success (e.g. M'Soft, Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon, UW, and many more) bring people here.

So far as I can see, the only choice is how to accommodate growth, not whether to allow it. I think that I am in the popular majority on this one — rare so I cherish the feeling — even though there may be intense debate in the community about the wisest how.

"Some business owners have responded to the ban with new amenities for their smoking clientele."

Smoking Ban Activates the Urban Landscape:

Seattle’s nighttime personality has dramatically changed since the smoking ban of 2005. It quite literally pushed people out of their interior hideaways and onto the city streets. The places for movement in, out and along are now becoming places where people stop, stay and socialize.

Initiative 901 passed overwhelmingly in November 2005, requiring Seattle’s public places and workplaces to be entirely smoke free. The law also prohibits smoking within 25 feet of the doorways, windows and air intakes of these protected places. The implications of this new law are particularly interesting in terms of how it has manifested itself in the urban landscape, immediately transforming the sidewalks, alleys and otherwise static places into a new active terrain.

Some business owners have responded to the ban with new amenities for their smoking clientele. For example, in an effort to offer a sense of comfort for the smokers, the Stumbling Monk on E.   Olive Way provides moveable seating and ashtrays on its sidewalk. Some businesses have even built exterior structures that extend 25 feet from their back door complete with landscaping and heat lamps like Linda’s on E Pine and The Beacon Hill Pub on Beacon Ave. S.

What are the lessons? Among several that
• urbanism doesn't require central planning except at the grossest level,
• socializing is the core indicator of urbanism and
• you can't stop a free market.

Why New Mexico?

David Pogue posts on a new electric car. I won't comment on the merits or demerits of such cars in general or in particular of this new company —  Tesla Motors — but only on this fact:

Tesla is building a factory in New Mexico...

Btw, it's not just a new factory but is the only factory. Fine. But why in New Mexico? Seems like an unlikely spot for an enterprise which — except for its power-plant — will rely on the same supply-chain of parts manufacturers and engineering firms etc etc as does General Motors or Toyota. No? And I don't think many of those enterprises have manufacturing plants or offices in New Mexico. So I wonder why Tesla chose to locate there. Or whether, aside from government subsidies, it will be a wise idea.

Skagit Valley Tulips

(click to enlarge)

Dream Home easily morphs into Nightmare

There New York Times has been running an account on a couple building their Dream Vacation Home. The description:

They've found an idyllic tiny town in Florida, they've bought a piece of land and now Paul B. Brown and Alison Davis are setting out to build their dream house. How hard can it be, they wonder, even though they live 1,500 miles away, they've never built a home before and they don't know anything about architects, builders, local zoning laws or financing? On this blog for Great Homes, they recount their successes and failures and will chronicle their adventures to come.

The "blog" is not really the correct format for their story as it is a largely a history raher than a contemporaneous on-going real time account. Nonetheless it is somewhat addictive and of course I have left my own comments there.

Guess again, boys.

Right-wingers are salivating, in their dreams. They think that Nancy Pelosi has violated the Logan Act.

My first thought is whether the Logan Act been tested in front of the Supreme Court?

Short of a person (who is not part of the Executive) explicitly engaging in negotiating a treaty, it seems to me that the Logan Act is totally un-enforceable. For example, when Bill Gates meets with the Premier of China, is that a violation of the Logan Act? If so, then modern capitalist enterprise is impossible as so much of it requires detailed interaction with foreign officials.

Consider the enforceability of Sec 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments, which reads:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States...

Based on the language of the Act, it would seem likely, as it's hard to imagine that Bill Gates (in both his role as head of Microsoft and of the Gates Foundation) and the Premier of China discuss only golf and bridge.

So what the Supremes have said on the matter? Not much, I gather, as there have been very few if any prosecutions under it. (See Logan Act at Wikipedia, fwiw.)

My hunch is that these anti-Pelosi sentiments are an extreme example of wishful and naive thinking and an attempt to help Bush by diverting attention from his ineptness.

Roundabout Tour, via Google Earth

Here's something useful:

"...a tour of modern roundabouts within the United States. Most of these roundabouts have been built after 1995 when American engineers learned about the benefits they bring for safety and mobility."

I am a big believer in roundabouts and wish they were used more. Consider: the real problem with urban driving is its stop and go nature. I find it frustrating and maddening. I would much rather move along at a smooth 20 miles per hour through a system of roundabouts, never stopping for lights or stop signs, than to zoom up to 40 and then have to come to a dead-stop. It's easier on the vehicle and on the emotions of the driver.

Now I am not saying roundabouts are perfect for every situation; I can see issues with pedestrians in some situations. But they have their role and we ought to be experimenting more with them.

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Here's a place to find an updated and even more complete Google Earth link from a firm which seems to specialize in them: Kittelson's Modern Roundabouts.

Very few want cheaper housing.

The old bromide that "growth management" helps raise housing costs has a flip side: growth management helps raise housing values. Rising housing prices -- due to whatever cause -- are NOT a problem if you own a house or make loans for people to buy them. Nor are they a problem if you build houses or broker them or tax them. In fact, homeowners and just about everyone else LIKE -- even LOVE -- increase in home values. The warning that restrictive regional planning will raise housing prices might well have tipped the political balance in favor of growth management: "A vote for Growth Management is a vote for increasing the value of land inside the urban growth boundary." Who is against that?

•••

One comment suggests that not everyone — certainly not those who don't own a house now — wants rising housing prices and that's a fair critique. So maybe I overstated and I should simply say that "the majority" are at the very least torn about whether increasing house values are good, bad or just a reality from which they both win and lose. I've written about this phenomenon here: Who really wants Affordable Housing? and also wondered whether Growth Management acts as de facto Price supports for housing. I also suggest Don't worry about a housing crash in Seattle.

Quite impressive

Microsoft announces Bellevue expansion plans.

So full are the company's existing buildings that it has been offering free valet parking to ease the space crunch in lots.

Is the date significant?

Published 01 April 2007 in The Independent.

A chance discovery by a Berkshire allotment-holder that a plant widely available in garden centres has the same effect on men as Viagra has been confirmed by experts at one of the world's leading botanical institutions.

7-11 vs. gas stations?

Who cares? Some do.

But my question is more global: Even "elitist" shoppers (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Costco Food etc etc) buy gas, need that "quart of milk" and could utilize the mini-mart. So where is the "high-end" mini-mart?

Obviously it would be in and adjacent to high(er)-end neighborhoods, of which there are plenty. So why don't they exist? Selling better products in a more comfortable environment? GREAT take-out food, nice landscaping & lighting etc. Ya know, Vivaldi playing in the background. Why not? Seems like an open market-niche. And the marginal cost of the more comfortable retail environment is trivial. Everyone knows you pay for the convenience of a "convenience store." So why not make the environment more attractive?