Little boxes, crammed together

Like the skinny houses of two decades ago, dense townhouse projects seem to be everywhere, and they look terrible. An architect and former Seattle City Council member says Seattle can do better.

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Downtown condo developers, beware of too many towers too close

Seattle Post-Intelligencer architecture critic Lawrence Cheek makes some excellent observations about the new urban renaissance of residential high-rises in downtown Seattle, praising design qualities of the recently completed 5th and Madison Tower, one the first residential high-rises to be completed after the new downtown code was adopted by the city in 2006. "5th and Madison confirms that we're back in a healthy and agreeable phase of high-rise fashion," Cheek writes. But he also raises some very legitimate issues about tower spacing and separation:

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An unjustified delay in restoring the King County Courthouse

For 40 years, the exterior of the 1916 building has been blighted by 1960s-era aluminum panels. There had been $109,000 in the $4.9 billion King County budget to study restoration of the exterior, but it was vetoed by Executive Ron Sims. In his debut as a Crosscut writer, architect and former Seattle City Council member Peter Steinbrueck says the County Council should override that veto.

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