Before the Light Fades Entirely: A Dialogue Involving Two Buildings Wholly Unconnected to the Community Around Them (and yet complete within themselves)

I had a dialogue with the ghost of John Graham Sr as I walked around this building on Sunday.
St Edwards Seminary, home to 214 students in its heyday, abandoned 300 feet above the north end of Lake Washington.  No one wants it anymore.  But there were so many people and their children here--strolling about the grounds.  Anyway, we talked about the Romanesque Style.  We talked in the fading light about

Rhythm Scale Light Axis Massing and a little bit about detail.

And then I went next door to Bastyr College and saw the garden, tried out the shiatsu footpath and observed 556 herbs being grown for medicinal purposes.  The village, housing 132 students in LEED Platinum Certified cottages, with no one about whatsoever and the architects Collins Woerman spoke to me, through their building, as architects often do,  about rain gardens and vegetative roofs.  We talked in the fading light about

Rhythm Scale Light Axis Massing and a little bit about detail.

And when I left I hoped they talked amongst themselves (the buildings, not Collins Woerman) because they both seemed rather lonely.

   

The school formerly known as Eastside Catholic

For a beautiful photo by eff-stop local of the current demolition work at a neighborhood schoolclick here

A Few More Updates since last summer

New Lake Heights/Newport Hills entrance signs are up and running--ceremony this morning at 10:30 on 119th and 48th...and at Tuesday's NHCC meeting we'll celebrate with cake.



Mojo Espresso cart is now gone. Current whereabouts unknown.


Blue Bug and the Trailer of Mystery (along with the ladder) are also gone.


The Red Apple sign is down to it's last "e"




Some construction activity going on at Eastside Catholic--updated pictures to follow

Back to School

It didn't hit me until later that this would be Nick's last first-day-of school. He's a senior now. I'm still trying to accept the fact that he's driving. He's still trying to accept the fact that my old Honda is not a Lamborghini.




Meanwhile, Piper remains a paragon of organization. And her carbon footprint is much smaller than her brother's.



Stella knows the house is going to be a lot quieter for a while.

Economic Development Meetings in Newport Hills

FOR SALE: BGN Properties Inc. Stod's. Built in 1969. 1.72 acres/75,100 square feet. Appraised value: $1,180,000.00

(From an earlier post)


Last March, A PROJECTED TWO-YEAR planning process got underway at a meeting at Newport Hills' Bank of America. Mayor Grant Degginger was in attendance, along with the City's Neighborhood Planner Cheryl Kuhns and Economic Development Director Bob Derrick as well as Bellevue City Council member Conrad Lee.

In the audience were about 40 or 50 concerned neighbors and merchants. Newport Hills Community Club ran a great presentation, with special credit going to President Cheryl Nygaard and Vice President Julie Rossman for encouraging inclusiveness by asking for written questions from the audience and using a large aerial map of our neighborhood business area to keep our focus in mind.

In his opening remarks, Mayor Degginger cited the new Newport Heights Elementary as a "game-changer," It puts Newport Hills on the radar and gives us a central focus. The City of Bellevue, he said, will now facilitate the neighborhood's community-building efforts by involving the community in future development decisions.

Degginger goes on to say that Newport Hills is now at the "top of the list" of six or seven similar neighborhood business centers in desperate need of an overhaul, and "now is the happy time" for Newport Hills to achieve theirs.


Step 1: The mayor's first suggestion was to come up with a neighborhood working group who could identify a shared vision to present to prospective developers. The city is more than ready to work with us at this time.

One model to watch is Lake Hills' neighborhood business center, pictured below, following the end of a lengthy 10-year planning process and the subject of a previous entry in Red Apple Elegy. The developer there is Cosmos, and the record of ups and downs the neighborhood has gone through with them is lengthy, and instructive.













The Follow-Up
There was never much of a follow-up effort to this meeting until the personable, patient, diligent and articulate Dorothy Bracken stepped up at the 4th of July barbecue at Newport Hills Park. She's shown here giving me the thumbs up.




There she polled neighbors queuing up for burgers about what they'd like to see at the Red Apple: Trader Joe's, PCC, hardware store, etc. as well as programming: swapmeets, community events, farmers market and sustainable gardens. A little like Crossroads, but not so big. There was a lot of mention of Third Places and Third Place Books. Both are subjects of previous blog entries.

Enter Pallis Properties
A few weeks later: Pallis Properties met with the newly-activated Newport Hills Economic Development Task Force composed of Dorothy, Dan Nygaard and Alex Golan. The big surprise is they want to develop Stod's, not the Red Apple.

NH Economic Development Task Force Meetings
The following week I attended two meetings held by the Task Force: one with Tom Boydell and Dan Stroh from City of Bellevue Econ Development and Long Range Planning, respectively. The atmosphere was cordial, albeit with a topdown meets bottom up dynamic.

The second meeting, on August 4, was before a larger group and included Pallis Properties and the two tenants, Thrive (a fitness center) and Kids Country, a daycare facility. PP goes public with a rendering. At this point I'm going to limit my comments to the ideas inspired by the rendering.

The drawing supplied by Pallis Properties shows the original Stod's, but now made unrecognizable behind a sort-of suburban stripmall facade. The parking lot is exactly the same, with some container plantings accentuating the stalls. I want to inject some ideas to consider before we lock in this look.



NW Regional Neighborhood Retail
Fuller/Sears Architects who have designed neighborhood retail in the Pacific NW Regional style all over Washington.


















Pickering Place, where Pallis Propertiespallisproperties.com did Trader Joe's and UW Physicians deals.

Chris Pallis has said he's interested in a coffee shop/kiosk and will look in to PCC.





Mixed Use
How about a PCC below and condos above at the Red Apple? Adding density in a sensible, appropriate way will win the neighborhood transit points. Or at least that's the theory....



Award-winning Design in the Neighborhood
BLRB, the architects of Newport Heights Elementary, itself the subject of a previous Red Apple Elegy blog entry and the object of praise by Mayor Degginger. It's stunning design is environmentally friendly and a building the whole neighborhood has begun to take pride in.


http://www.blrb.com/

(From their website)
Inspired by its heavily forested site, Newport Heights Elementary School draws from the surrounding palette to create a canvas of environmental expression. Landscaped courtyards connect buildings and act as learning gardens, roof forms act as rain collectors, continuous windows in corridors enable connections with the outdoors, and an outdoor amphitheater employs surrounding trees as a backdrop for school performances. Blurred lines between outdoors and indoors enable students to experience the natural beauty and environmental intrigues of the Northwest.
...This layout breaks down the school's scale to ensure a more intimate setting, uphold relationships between facility users and maintain the residential feel of the neighborhood. To retain a sense of community, a large gathering plaza near the entry encourages socializing and outdoor team teaching. The exterior building form, comprised of masonry, glass and metal paneling, creates a traditional setting with a northwest architectural expression.

Old growth conifers were retained to perpetuate wildlife habitat and plant biodiversity. The Northwest native plant palette and drought tolerant species ensure reduced water consumption throughout the site. Rainwater diverted from the butterfly roof structures into the storm system showcases the reuse of rainwater as an exciting water feature.

Suburban Contextual
And of course, there is the beauty of the original Stod's, unique to this neighborhood's history and it is, in its way, honest and familiar:

Frank Gehry in Newport Hills

Another architectural icon found within the industrial hurricane fencing at the baseball field of Eastside Catholic:

Frank Gehry's house, above, where he lives in Venice Beach. Gehry built his house when he was poor and unknown and a great finder of construction materials scavenged from his neighborhood.

Below, a hut with speakers and customized padding for added protection from errant bats and balls. What a great art studio!

Grassy Sea

For the last two weeks I've been visiting the ruins of Eastside Catholic in our neighborhood. I'm drawn to the spaces carved out by baseball and football fields (erstwhile home of The Crusaders) tennis courts, a track, the fence-bounded campus which is off limits, and portable classrooms. There is litter here, and graffiti, a broken window or two. But there are also signs of survival and reclamation. What I find most intriguing is the austere beauty of objects in a grass sea and recall two of the most enduringly beautiful architectural icons of the last century:

Mies Van der Rohe, Farnsworth House, Plano, IL




Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy, France

Re pple

Eastside Catholic (recently abandoned and vandalized) has acquired a lovely fence for another year until Bellevue School District moves in the first of several temporary schools while their home schools are being remodeled. Tyee Middle School will be the first, but the BSD has decided to postpone construction for another year.

We really hope this isn't what the owners decide to do with Red Apple, which has recently been showing signs of neglect when both the small d and large A burned out:

"Re pple"

Newport Heights Elementary School

Newport Heights Elementary is a beautiful, green addition to our community. And I love the way its designers made the decision to leave out all the warning signs that plague "old-school" public spaces which list rules in a very uncreative, unfriendly way. Subtlety is woven into the design here. Concrete borders/benches encourage sitting but discourage skateboarding--not with warnings but with small stainless steel raised strips. And this is a school that doesn't stop teaching at the classroom. What do the following photos tell you about what's going on inside? Click to enlarge any photo.



A hallway with child-level windows to see outside as you're walking past.



OK, now I'm curious! Isn't the point of education, (and architecture?) to get a person curious about his or her environment? Correct answer: Yes! What better place than at a school? Don't you wonder what's going on behind the small green window?



I moved around the building focusing on how they were able to drain rainwater from all these different roof pitches. I found this lovely courtyard garden with a circle of rocks as its central element. Looking up I spotted the arrow-like shape of a downspout, trained on the center of the rocks. On rainy days this becomes animated with rain pouring in a beautiful slender waterfall onto the rocks below, creating a
restful sight and sound sculpture for the users of the school's library.



Another view of the library courtyard, showing the windows angled toward the northern sky, bringing in light to this interior space. From the outside you can tell this is the protected heart of the school.



One of several downspouts directing rainwater to the planted areas.



A small amphitheatre for outdoor productions is surfaced with permeable grass, rather than concrete. Also kinder to tumbling small bodies...beyond is a grassy swale which becomes a creek in the rain.





The creek-like outlines on the concrete paths offset the strong vertical lines and angles of the building. This makes them more inviting and human, somehow. As if to say, walk this way...



Wonderfully elegant "treestumps" in concrete for children to sit on as they wait for the bus after school.


I love the proportions here--they seem to emphasize what's important: generous overhangs for rainyday afternoons waiting for the schoolbus, or for moms and dads waiting for the bell to ring. Windows for administrative staff to keep an eye on things from their desks; but also at a height conducive for children to peek in--wonder how the secretaries like this? It's friendly, though. And you know this is the main entry. Always important in a public space.