Posted Tue, Apr 24, 6:19 a.m.

The State of New Jersey caused a remarkable increase in the amount of renovation by making its building code more flexible. The basic principle was "let the punishment fit the crime". Rather than a percentage/ value threshold for things like earthquake proofing, the code looked at whether you were doing ...

Posted Thu, Mar 29, 11:37 p.m.

Interesting comment here about the effect of Watergate on the public trust. I was a sophomore in high school that year, taking American history from a teacher who popped the conventional balloons, and watching this all take place with the interest of a teenager watching real life drama. I'll never ...

Posted Sat, Dec 24, 6:57 a.m.

This is basically a defense of the police force, by someone who used to be a part of the administration that managed that police force. The writer's message is "trust first the SPD, not the Department of Justice." The police department must find it strange to be on the defense. ...

Posted Wed, Nov 30, 4:11 p.m.

Fish don't shop, so don't count on more retail there any time soon. Other than houseboats and office space, there are few kinds of real estate that will get more people into the area on a daily basis. Let's start with the assumption that this may simply be an un-peopled ...

Posted Tue, Nov 29, 5:54 p.m.

My advice: take the viaduct and just live with the space for a few years. It's basically cut off from the downtown, which is a bluff above it, between Seneca and Wall. Let this place evolve on its own for a few years, as the city decides what it needs ...

Posted Sun, Nov 27, 2:14 p.m.

Let's simplify things even more by having people simply step on a scale with their baggage! That will also create amusement for fellow passengers during an otherwise boring boarding process.

Posted Fri, Sep 16, 3:53 a.m.

The unanswered question on many of these installations is the return-on-investment. It's not important what something individually costs, or saves, but the ratio between the two. Somethings have a good return, some a poor. By the way, $32,000 is about half the total annual cost of a teacher. Firms like ...

Posted Thu, Sep 8, 4:45 p.m.

what's authentic is the experience of making tangible something yourself, and and enjoying it. That's a far cry from video games and cheaply made things that go to the landfill with little use.

Posted Sun, Aug 7, 9:43 p.m.

Of course reasonable, functional design matters, but "architecture" as usually used today, has come to mean "starchiteture", buildings designed simply to be different and to be expressive, like EMP. More often than not, more creative energy goes into designing the facade of these buildings than the interiors or the way ...

Posted Fri, Aug 5, 6:17 p.m.

I'm not sure that architecture matters, except to architects. The great cities of Europe do indeed have memorable architecture- St. Pauls and the Houses of Westminster in London and the Eiffel Tower and the cathedral in Paris, but for the most part the buildings in these cities are undistinguished. And ...

Posted Thu, Aug 4, 6:52 p.m.

There are several reasons that the Pearl District, in Portland, is more interesting. First, the block size and road grid. The blocks there are just 200 feet on a side, much smaller than SLU. This makes the walking much more interesting, for it breaks up things into more bite size ...

Posted Wed, Jul 27, 6:57 p.m.

We've had this problem on Bainbridge Island, where our former mayor drank the Koolaid of "urban villages" and tried to turn our rural island's main street into something akin to the top of Queen Anne Hill, complete with five-story buildings. Call it the "golden goose phenomena": the developers want to ...

Posted Wed, Jul 27, 6:57 p.m.

We've had this problem on Bainbridge Island, where our former mayor drank the Koolaid of "urban villages" and tried to turn our rural island's main street into something akin to the top of Queen Anne Hill, complete with five-story buildings. Call it the "golden goose phenomena": the developers want to ...