movement@montlake

Brian Monwai

The pace of movement in contemporary urban life at times runs quickly, at other times slowly. We spend a lot of time hurrying from place to place -- whether by car, by bicycle, or on foot. Sometimes we find ourselves standing still against a backdrop of people rushing by.

The direction of movement can travel in parallel lines as in a freeway, in the overlapping, criss-crossing layers of an overpass, or in a randomly dissipating cloud like smoke from a smokestack. People – strangers and friends -- form an aggregate by coming together intentionally or unintentionally, with similar or dissimilar destinations when they depart. Signage may attempt to direct the flow of movement, but most of the everyday urban movement remains uncontrolled.

The Montlake area of Seattle is a hub of variegated patterns of movement. Bus riders, automobiles, gymnasts and their fans, and bicyclists are a sampling of agents in motion. Not shown are the myriad float-planes, automobile exhaust plumes, buses, crows, and joggers that form the dynamic texture of Montlake.

This project was also an experiment at methods of capturing a sense of movement with still pictures. Notes: while the panhandler and speed limit/your speed pictures were not taken at Montlake, they helped illustrate the nuances of urban movement. The pictures in the photo mosaic were also taken from the expanded Seattle area. The mosaic was assembled with AndreaMosaic software.

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University Heights Center for Community

Josho Somine
LARCH 598
Winter 2009
Final Site Assessment

Site Summary
The University Heights Center for Community (UHCC) occupies a full city block north and west of NE 50th St. and University Way NE in Seattle. A large old building, formerly an elementary school, occupies the center of the block, and is surrounded by parking lots and a variety of small open spaces. The building facilities are managed by a nonprofit organization, and several other organizations rent spaces inside. Some additional rooms are available for classes and events.
The spatial and temporal uses outside the building are similarly diverse. Paved parking makes up about 2/3 of all the open space, and has multiple tenants with jurisdiction over certain sections of the lots. One large lot is turned over to the district Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings, which is heavily attended year-round. The site also contains 2 playgrounds, one private and one public, a community garden, a small enclosed lawn, and a public entrance plaza. (See site diagram and context diagram for details of the layout.)
The Center’s stated focus is “our local community, children, arts and education, and continuing education” , and they encourage a changeable variety of tenant organizations and activities. (See current list in Appendix A) Although there is an effort to be welcoming, there is also some conflict implicit with the “seedier” aspects of the adjoining neighborhood, which is reflected in an abundance of fencing and regulatory signage all around the site.

Slideshow:

Elusive Sites / "Terrain Vague"

Sarah Ferreter

The urban landscape is scattered with ambiguous sites; places in which architecture and landscape don’t mesh, where the space is in some way odd, leftover, unresolved, indefinable. The architect Ignasi de Solà-Morales coined the term terrain vague to describe such places: obsolete or dysfunctional sites that punctuate the otherwise cohesive, definable organization of the cityscape.

These elusive spaces, such as abandoned lots, degrading post-industrial sites, or areas under bridges, stand in contrast to the meticulously planned, readily definable spaces that make up the majority of the city. They seem almost like mistakes that were never erased from the landscape, left to remain unseen, incoherent. Only describable by what they are not; only defined by what is beside them. They are the form of absence.

These leftover spaces are hard to discern, since we have few paradigms for them; they possess multiple and shifting meanings rather than clear functions. They resist definition because they do not fit into the expected logic of the urban landscape. We are not really meant to see them - they float in ambiguity and disconnection. Yet the value of these sites is in their vagueness; they serve as reminders that the urban landscape is never essentially coherent.

Surface: the connective tissue of our malleable city

Breanne Gearheart

The surface is being remade.
The city is in the midst of itself.
It is a reinvention and an unbiased creation.
It is a record, an accumulation.
Impressions made by a living city
pressed into its body by the pressure of time.
It is no one’s fault and no one’s genius.
It is because of us and in spite of us.

Concrete is poured, smooth walls are pieced together, metal is shaped and embedded in the ground, asphalt is scorched into place. These physical undertakings create the body of our cities. We often conceive of the urban environment as entirely designed. Decisions were made. Architects, city planners, landscape architects, neighborhood organizations, graffiti artists, and shop owners are seen as the creators of our urban surroundings. Yet, a quieter design is adding depth and richness to our cities.

Built forms are physically scarred, rubbed smooth, or momentarily altered by passing phenomenon. Physical form is activated by accidental interventions. The city becomes a physical record of intangible temporal occurrences. Time passes, people move about, rain falls, wind blows. The city is an expression of the processes that occur within it.

Through observing the changes on its surface, we can come to see the built environment as a malleable expression of the life of the city. Multiple narratives are unified and expressed in the flexible form of the city.

Vacant Lots - Abandoned Potential

Leslie Batten

Vacant lots are scattered like patches throughout the city. Defined as "a lot with no permanent buildings", these lots take on any number of forms that allow for a variety of functions: habitat, garbage dump, exhibit space, water retention reservoir, community unifier, or just left over space. Most of us speed by without stopping to look, but with some exploration these spaces are more than just a lot devoid of a built structure. Each vacant space has a story to tell. They all have a history, an owner, passerby's and neighbors that shape these spaces. In turn, vacant spaces also influence their surroundings for better or worse. They are palimpsests of how we use the land over time, and allude to the future potential for urban renewal or redevelopment.

Many vacant lots are protected by a chain link fence that forms a barrier, as if to protect a valuable asset or to preserve its state of transition. While others remain open and unguarded. Some spaces indicate previous development with hints of foundations, or parking lots overgrown with grass and weeds. Others are neat, tidy spaces that look designed. In some cases these spaces provide a bit of nature in the midst of an otherwise built out and highly urban area. Others are in such a state of decay that they are wounds in the landscape and a source of outrage for their community. Still other vacant spaces provide for other temporary uses.

These are just a few vacant spaces scattered between Greenwood, Fremont, Ravenna and the University District. Many others with similar and unique traits are spread throughout the city, forming a connection between micro- and macro-urbanism. They too express a personality, a history, and hold a story that is more telling than just an empty lot.


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Tukwila: A River Runs Through It

Helen J. Wilson

For over 150 years, Tukwila has come of age around three themes: History, Transportation, and the Duwamish River. A panorama of the community’s past can be seen from the Interurban/Green River Bicycle Trail, which hugs the banks of the river as it loops and curves 13 miles through the heart of the city. Wayside markers, art installations, and parks commemorate successive waves of human arrival, and how they traveled through the landscape. In anticipation of its centennial in 2008, a historian was commissioned to record the city’s past for publication. On the trail with the book in hand, scene after scene comes alive with tribal legend, and stories of the early pioneers. As the inhabitants went from canoeing on the river to flying through on the interstate, different kinds of transportation modes have come and gone, leaving layers of artifacts to mark their passing. Tukwila has expended great effort to give voice to the myriad cultures that have influenced its landscape. As can be seen from the trail, it has fearlessly blended nature and industry to create a phenomenon that is part museum, part wilderness, and part art gallery. Come see landscape urbanism and historic preservation at its finest.


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