Politics
Messing with a park designed by a landscape master
Counterbalance Park, on lower Queen Anne, is the last work by architect Robert Murase. It deserves better than a clunky intrusion of sculpture meant to honor a donor.
Mark Hinshaw
Mark Hinshaw, FAIA, is an architect and urban planner. He was an architecture critic for The Seattle Times and is the author of many articles and books, including Citistate Seattle (1999).
Latest work
Equity
Time to stop snubbing the suburbs?
The notion of a "suburb" is history. Diversity, greater density, more shopping and transportation choices are all part of the new identities of the communities around Seattle.
Politics
San Diego: how NOT to treat a central waterfront
A developer, aided by the daily newspaper he just bought, wants to plop a big football stadium on the harborfront. That's an idea Seattle should not import.
Politics
Best of 2011: Sick suburbs, expiring exurbs
Regions such as Snohomish County that fell hard for developers' dreams of remote housing projects are paying a severe price in foreclosures and short sales. The cruel market correction confirms the economic value of denser, closer-in residential patterns.
Politics
Best of 2011: James Corner's waterfront plans: Get the editing pencil
The success of some New York public spaces such as the High Line and Bryant Park may be leading the architect for Seattle's proposed Waterfront Park to crowd and over-program a space that cries out for serenity and introspection.