Here at Schemata, we are fortunate to have developed some long-term client relationships. One is with ET Environmental, who is the GC/CM for our Waste Management projects.

Troy, Sherri, and Jeff of ET Environmental

Last week, Emiko (my partner) and I were hosted by Jeff and Troy of ET, at their offices in Ketchum, Idaho. This being the Northwest, we haveadditional options to the typical golf or tennis business outing – ours was a back-country tour of the Titus Lake Basin, just south of the Sawtooth Mountains.

Jeff Picking a Line

Un-tracked powder and sunny skies kept the smiles on our face from mid-morning until late afternoon.

Our Tracks . . .

New to tree skiing and Rocky Mountain powder, the tour had me wondering if this was yet another test of the architect-client relationship?

Me and Emiko

Fortunately, the expert guiding by my client hosts quickly convinced me and I no longer worried if this was some sinister way of further breaking in a consultant.

What a Day!

Client satisfaction is a hallmark of Schemata Workshop.  When Mike and I started the company over 7 years ago, we were truly committed to providing a high level of service to all of our clients – regardless of the project type or size.  We have no “bread and butter” projects – all of our clients are treated as a priority.  Yeah, I hear you…this might sound trite, cheesy, gratuitous, whatever.  But we really mean it, really.  And we try our best to practice with this intention.

Over the years we have been featured in a national article for our attention to customer service and commended time and time again by clients for our high quality services.  And this is an ethic that we have intentionally passed down to our employees.  So I was particularly proud to read a post today on a client’s blog – she blogged about Peggy Heim (our longest-standing employee) and her ability to quietly, calmly, and confidently walk them through a very challenging home remodel.  Not only was I proud of Peggy and the careful attention she gave the client, but also for the 8 other colleagues she has working with her.  We have a solid team that truly understands the importance of customer service and the dividends it returns in the form of client satisfaction, referrals and rewarding projects.  After all, we are not practicing architecture for our own enjoyment (but that’s a nice fringe benefit).

To read about Peggy’s ability to “walk on water”, click here.

As related in the previous post on Capitol Hill’s alleys, their inherently less public nature creates a social environment distinct from that of their associated streetscapes. Furthermore, this distinct environment has fostered experimentation in the design of alley landscapes and buildings. While not in the avant-garde, these experiments can nonetheless be seen as a foil to the more ordered and regular streetscapes they are paired with. Some alley experiments are simply whimsical and relatively ephemeral in nature, others relatively daring in their re-conceiving of typical alley elements into bolder more modern constructs, exploiting the alley as a vehicle for design exploration.

One impetus for alley experiments is found in the blending & compacting of roadway, sidewalk, and landscape into an area of less girth than our streets, and, therefore, to lesser expectations for openness and transparency. An indicator of this variance with the normative can be seen in the retaining walls that frequently demise the alley, but at a scale and opacity rarely seen on streets. Such robustness results from the fact that alleys and their walls are frequently used to terrace grades along our hilly landscape. Charged with retaining massive amounts of earth, alley walls cannot be bothered with the niceties of pedestrian scale and detail that are incumbent street side, and are therefore able to more efficiently discharge their duty. Pictured below is a landscape wall that directly and unapologetically dispenses with its retaining chores, and is a good representative of the normative condition.

On Capitol Hill’s alleys such…

The Congress for the New Urbanism presented the Sustainable Street Network Principles on Monday 23 January at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting. Marcy McInelly (Urbsworks, Inc.) and Joseph Readdy (Schemata Workshop) presented the new compact guide to achieving a human-scale street network that supports social, cultural, and economic exchange.

“We assert that current transportation engineering addresses only limited individual components of the region’s street network. This results in a fragmented and inefficient system that fails to adequately engage the social, environmental, and economic aspirations of communities.”

These principles advocate a human-scaled urbanism, where the act of walking represents the basic unit of design. Instead of having considering the street network as the means to achieve mobility or transportation service, it looks to maximize our investment in infrastructure by choices that are “magnets for business, light industry, jobs, and economic opportunities.”

This project lays out seven principles for creating vital, livable networks of streets, supported by six key characteristics for implementing these principles.

Those points where multiple modes of transportation intersect are the places that have the highest potential for placemaking. Places that thoughtfully coordinate the connections between the pedestrian, bike, transit, and car are the ones that will generate the highest economic value.

These principles matter because despite the $200 billion per year the US spends in transportation infrastructure, the country has higher traffic fatality rates than any developed nation. Engineering has been focused on moving cars and trucks quickly, yet transportation delays per capita has more than doubled since 1982, and the US has the highest vehicle miles traveled per capita globally. Americans spend more time in their cars than anyone on…

Alleys have a certain alluring, intimate quality to them, owing to their lesser width and traffic as well as their less intentional nature. Typically associated with the denser, more urban parts of a city, Seattle has an extensive network of alleys not only in its downtown but also in many of its residential neighborhoods, including Capitol Hill. Close-by Portland, by comparison, has only one sizable neighborhood with alleys, Ladd’s Addition. Here on Capitol Hill, we not only have alleys, but alleys forming a network that is extensive and diverse, presenting fertile ground for the urban explorer.  In fact, the network is so diverse that today’s is the first of several posts on the topic — and all on alleys in only one corner of the Hill: east of 15th, west of 22nd, north of Thomas, and south of Galer.

First and foremost, alleys are about service, and are the home of utility poles, recycling bins, garages, and other sundries that allow us to not only efficiently run our lives but to do so in a manner that keeps streets presentable and less cluttered. This prescribed, service role occurs within a variety of landscapes, ranging from compacted gravel roads — more akin to a country lane than an urban way — to alley landscapes that are meticulously cared for and brick-paved. While any given street landscape may possess such variety, the alley landscapes depicted here possess it within a more compact range — and sometimes only within a single block — oftentimes belying the apparent uniformity presented by the associated…