The English telephone booth, or “telephone box”, has a history all its own, including national competition to arrive at a uniform design. Browse the web and you can buy one for your basement.
Or, if you can, travel the world, and see the uses of an anachronism, ranging from an expatriate icon in a former colony to a thematic gateway to a Seattle restaurant. Cell phones have denied us one urban symbol of the British Empire.
As recently touted in local press, on the evening of March 4, the reclaimed, illuminated Nord Alley in Seattle’s Pioneer Square emanated urbanism. The much anticipated Green Alleys Competition, sponsored by the International Sustainability Institute, AIA Seattle, and other groups, awarded the Grand Prize to Seattle’s Weinstein A|U LLC.
As a placemaking prototype of the sort discussed in the two part myurbanist“Placemaking Comes Home” series earlier in the week, the evening experience amplified angle, color and texture consistent with the eighth of the twelve principles repeated below.
The photos which follow show the rich possibilities of reclaimed pedestrian spaces, without the need to travel thousands of miles to find them.
Here is a one-stop summary of the 12 myurbanist principles to foster placemaking in Seattle, consistent with the current multiple public dialogues about enhancement of alleys, public spaces, street appearance and safety:
1. Emphasize an alluring focal point.
2. Use hanging green.
3. Use simple, green plantings and encourage ornamental building features in the path of view.
4. Where possible, enhance multi-level exposure to vernacular buildings amid the urban fabric.
5. Provide varied forms of encounter with surrounding commercial uses.
6. Celebrate exotic signage.
7. Provide for a multi-color, mixed use environment.
8. Together amplify angle, color and texture to highlight organic street life.
9. Enhance structural features to frame places enroute.
10. Celebrate the marketplaces of vending and dining.
11. Make angles magical.
12. Highlight iconic buildings.
Last week brought active discussion of pedestrian and safety enhancements to Seattle streets. This week began with Councilmembers Burgess and Rasmussen commencing a City response to graffiti and street litter.
And below, in association with such safe and clean street initiatives, myurbanist resumes exploration of qualities might Seattle adapt from afar to implement and enhance alleys and related public space. This article, the second of a series (which began here on February 28), proposes additional qualities for Seattle placemaking.
Here is a one-stop summary of the 12 myurbanist principles to foster placemaking in Seattle, consistent with the current multiple public dialogues about enhancement of alleys, public spaces, street appearance and safety:
1. Emphasize an alluring focal point.
2. Use hanging green.
3. Use simple, green plantings and encourage ornamental building features in the path of view.
4. Where possible, enhance multi-level exposure to vernacular buildings amid the urban fabric.
5. Provide varied forms of encounter with surrounding commercial uses.
6. Celebrate exotic signage.
7. Provide for a multi-color, mixed use environment.
8. Together amplify angle, color and texture to highlight organic street life.
9. Enhance structural features to frame places enroute.
10. Celebrate the marketplaces of vending and dining.
11. Make angles magical.
12. Highlight iconic buildings.
It may be that no vantage points can create the drama of Rome’s Spanish Steps at Harbor Steps.
Nonetheless, five additional principles might apply to the seven qualities set out in the companion myurbanist February 28 article.
1. Together amplify angle, color and texture to highlight organic street life.
2. Enhance structural features to frame places enroute.
3. Celebrate the marketplaces of vending and dining.
4. Make angles magical.
5. Highlight iconic buildings.
Jelled by recent public presentations and early Spring weather, late February Seattle is alive with the prospect of enhanced street life and the need for perceived safety among prospective street users.
Foreign inspiration from Denmark and Australia has defined a potential first step–dumpster removal, simple addition of patio furniture and other inexpensive implements to enhance use of improved alleys–all to exemplify how to reclaim public spaces.
The Seattle Times‘ “Sketcher”, Gabriel Campanario recently highlighted Nord Alley in Pioneer Square as evidence of the possible, and noted AIA-Seattle’s “green alleys competition” will unveil winners on March 4.
Indeed, regulatory barriers, property rights and maintenance issues are negotiable by motivated parties. City guidance for alley enhancement is readily available.
Seattle is poised to move from the setting of Pompeii’s past to the “laneways” of Melbourne.
What qualities might Seattle adapt from afar to implement “laneways”, enhance public space and create its own “post-modern Post Alleys”?
Here, in the first of a series, myurbanist proposes seven initial qualities, mindful of context, climate and topography.
1. Emphasize an alluring focal point.
2. Use hanging green.
3. Use simple, green plantings and encourage ornamental building features in the path of view.
4. Where possible, enhance multi-level exposure to vernacular buildings amid the urban fabric.
5. Provide varied forms of encounter with surrounding commercial uses.
6. Celebrate exotic signage.
7. Provide for a multi-color, mixed use environment.
Aesthetics may drive first impressions, but it’s all about context.
Repeatedly, we are exposed to classic, new urbanist American placemaking, set out below in a Seattle commercial setting. Walkable, compact surroundings, use of varied materials and welcoming colors present a gathering place in bloom, at a remade in-city shopping center once adjacent to an urban landfill.
Consider alternative placemaking in a barren climate which precludes the color green, depicted below. Across from the capital city of Valetta, Malta, the Tigne Point redevelopment area in Sliema shows the the monochromatic confluence of density and history, with work to be completed in 2012. Residential and resort redevelopment replaces abandoned British military barracks, where key Turkish cannons fired during the Great Siege of Malta in 1565.
Yet seemingly unflattering, under-construction images of native stone in an arid climate need not preclude our sought-after sense of “compact surroundings, use of varied materials and welcoming colors”.
Indeed, below, in the inland city of Mosta, Malta, we see simply-stated, contextual placemaking, a world apart from our own.
