Capitol Hill PARK(ing) Day - FRIDAY SEPT 20

Come check out these four great sustainability themed PARK(ing) Day sites in the Pike Pine and 12th Avenue Corridors. 

Schemata Workshop, Urban Bee Co, and Eltana are highlighting the awesomeness of pollinators and bee hives. Come make cider with the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict and check out a new map of neighborhood fruit trees. Sustainable Capitol Hill will be promoting the Capitol Hill Tool Library and sharing information about Melrose Promenade. The 12th Avenue Stewards and Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences will be discussing community intersections and choices and the park coming to 12th and James Ct.

Visit all four sites and get a free treat from Eltana, discounts from Vino Verite, enter to win a gift certificate to Cherry Street Coffee, and other fun gifts/promotions! 

PARK(ing) Day is an annual worldwide event where artists, designers and citizens transform metered parking spots into temporary public parks.

Saint Mark's Greenbelt

After several unsuccessful years of hoping to come across the St Mark’s Greenbelt during one of my neighborhood walks, I resolved this past spring to make a dedicated effort to find it. Although I had yet to visit it, I imagined the Greenbelt would present a unique environment to enjoy Capitol Hill, and another pathway to connect the highlands of 10th Avenue with the lowlands of Lakeview Drive. Google maps revealed that the Greenbelt is between the Blaine Street hill-climb and St Mark’s Cathedral. I decided to make a bit on a loop of my search, and took the long drop down the Blaine Street hill-climb from 10th Avenue to Lakeview Boulevard, after which I planned to ascend back up to Tenth through the Greenbelt itself.

Scaling our numerous hill-climbs is always enjoyable, and it was nice to actually descend the Blaine Street steps. The hill-climbs are a unique feature of Seattle, and a nice way of being in a public right of way reserved solely for pedestrians, instead of one shared with cars or even bicycles. Carving their way through the landscape, they offer a great perspective on the very edges of what is buildable, and present a distinct character from the side that is on more level ground.

During my loop I happened to pass the Egan House, Historic Seattle’s youngest building. After going down the hill-climb, I had a new appreciation for the Egan House’s bold geometry, reflecting perfectly the slope of the hillside I just descended.

The Lakeview trailhead to the Greenbelt is just south of the Egan House, and starts out rather steeply. The first dozen yards or so were nothing noteworthy, mostly a collection of various camping spots. It was quite another story, however, when I rounded a corner and was presented with the back of the home of one of Capitol Hill’s most illustrious former residents, Sam Hill. Mr. Hill was a railroad executive and promoter of transportation of all kinds in the late 19th and early 20th century (Wikipedia has a nice entry). In the early 20th century, Mr. Hill decided to locate his Seattle residence at the northern edge of the Harvard-Belmont neighborhood. Edge indeed, as the difference between the street side of the house and that of its hillside side must be one of the most dramatic one could encounter in the neighborhood. The drama is best captured by the arc of the driveway, with its foundation forming a formidable wall, making the driveway above appear much larger and more important than it otherwise would. This view came as quite a surprise, as for years I have admired Mr. Hill’s house, but on its Highland Drive side.

Continuing my way up the Greenbelt to 10th Avenue, I was presented with an equally dramatic view of the backside of a building many of us are familiar with, St Mark’s Cathedral. Less ‘refined’ than its 10th Avenue entry, I find its backside much more satisfying. Lacking the brick veneer of the 10th Avenue entry, the back and sides of St Mark’s are unadorned concrete, the subtle textures of its board-forms adding a most pleasing texture. The surprise was not, however, as great as the differences between the front and back of the Hill house, as the sides of Saint Mark’s are easily visible from 10th.

Surprise often results when the difference between expectations and what one actually experiences. As a means to punctuate such a difference, I returned to the Hill house, but to that side which one typically encounters along Highland. The classic proportions of the building and its fine detail are little indication of what lurks just out of view. A clever recessed bay window and sundial are but a few of the building’s refinements and are in contrast to the expansive and monolithic wall now out of view. And I suppose it was just this kind of contrast – the contrast between what is known and what it discovered – that I was looking for when I embarked on this particular walk. Fortunately for us this kind of surprise is easily found within the diversity of our neighborhood, and one that will keep me searching and surprised for years to come.

Eleventh Avenue’s Eclectic Mix

There is a collection of four apartment/condominium buildings on 11th Avenue just south of Volunteer Park that merit special attention from architecture and landscape buffs on Capitol Hill.  While they all share fine materials, detailing, and wonderfully maintained landscapes, each has enough difference from one another – as well as from the typical Capitol Hill apartment building – that they simultaneously stand in distinction from our typical apartment flats and are yet simultaneously unified by their overall quality.

My favorites of the four are the two southernmost. With limited exceptions on the Hill, housing inspired more by English estate homes or collegiate-gothic is rare. Certainly such novelty lends to the charm, as does their excellent craft. This ‘gothic’ pair in some ways is the inverse of the northern two; in so much as they are undoubtedly modeled after much larger buildings. There is a bit of awkwardness in evidence in this transformation of a large precedent into a smaller footprint, with the projecting rooms and cornices better suited in scale to something much larger. Yet this juxtaposition of scale lends the pair a unique character and charm as well as interior spaces – in the case of the projecting rooms – that must be surprisingly light-filled for such a relatively compact building. Even the space between the buildings is rather compact, lending another distinction from their more pastoral precedent. Combing such crisply defined intimate spaces creates a rich pedestrian  experience of both shallow and deep space, paved and landscaped, that has few rivals on the Hill.

The third building of the quartet has its own peculiar scale, which is actually the opposite of the previous examples: here the building more resembles a single family home, but stretched to a more expansive size. An inflated Dutch colonial as it were. Instead of an entry and edge that recedes into the landscape as do the others, this building asserts its presence with pomp, its first floor raised above and accessed by a grand entry stair. It is as if the first two downplay their patrician heritage and the third elevates its prosaic roots.

The fourth building of the group presents us with a normative Capitol Hill edifice, but one that is molded to its site in an atypical manner. Instead of being the standard rectangular box, the building skews its northern façade to follow the bend of Prospect Avenue, with its main entry being accessed through a cozy courtyard not terribly different from the spaces created by the first pair of apartments. While hardly extraordinary, these two moves combined with a lush landscape helps to unite this fourth building with the other three: few such short stretches of apartments on the Hill simultaneously feel so united in purpose, but so different and unique in their individual expression.  

Remarkably similar to the Gothic pair, there is a bit of a loner on Broadway just north of Prospect that warrants a reference. I have always enjoyed the dignity of this building. Although rather diminutive in size, it is assertive to the street in the way of its brethren on 11th, and provides the same sort or projecting and light-filled rooms mentioned above as well as some of their historic references (note the castle-like crenellations on the roof parapet). With a little more breathing room on its southern side, one even gets the chance to see the transition from standard brick to clay tile blocks, a rarely used material in this country, but still common in Europe.  

Modular Construction - A Tipping Point for the Affordable Housing Industry?

For more than a decade I’ve been touting the benefits of modular construction to the affordable housing industry.  In the early years, I was trying to convince bankers that modular construction was real property – they confused modular with manufactured housing (aka mobile homes or double wides).  Then it was talking with General Contractors about how their subs would bid out the site work, and whether they would charge a premium due to decreased scope or uncertainty about scope.  And the latter few years was spent encouraging an Owner to be the pioneer – to be the first to build a multifamily affordable housing project using modules. 

tortise and the hare

At times I felt like I was the proverbial tortoise watching the hares run by with built prototypes and talk of market rate multifamily projects. Michelle Kauffman, with her Breeze House and Glide House, opened up the single family market and suddenly prefab was perceived as cool and sustainable by the likes of the Sunset and Dwell magazine readership. When Michelle was a keynote speaker at the Housing Washington Conference [1] a few years back, I thought “wow, it’s about to tip!” But it didn’t.

Until now.

On July 23, we opened bids for Schemata’s first modular construction project. The pioneering client is the Renton Housing Authority. The project is an 18-unit 2-story multifamily project – predominantly townhomes but with four stacked flats, making the scope a perfect test case.

Modular construction means that residential units arrive on site 90% complete with interior finishes, flooring, plumbing and lighting fixtures, electrical wiring, plumbing lines, windows and even exterior cladding if you choose. The modules are trucked to the site and lifted onto a site built foundation by a mobile crane.  

OneBuild Modular Setting

The state and county funders thought the project was very innovative and awarded the project funding on the first round, which was quite an accomplishment in such a competitive environment.  And while construction for sitework will commence immediately, the L&I approval process [2] for the modules is just starting with the selected manufacturer which means that modules cannot begin production for at least 2-3 months. 

The design of the project started off with a strong understanding of the shipping constraints [3].  While modular construction can accommodate wide open and double height spaces, the greatest economy can be achieved when modules are essentially intact, self-contained boxes.  Given the tight construction budget, we elected to be conservative with our first project and go the latter route, expressing the modularity of the construction type in both the unit planning and exterior expression.  Intent on a design that would allow the new homes to fit in with the neighboring modest and traditional housing, we looked at the gable form of the archetypal house.  However, the width of the units were 14’ wide and gables over each unit which would have created a busy roofline.  Instead, the gable was split over 2 units and the two halves slid past each other to provide modulation along the street.

KAT concept diagram

As townhomes, the stacking of units creates a fairly straightforward connection (or marriage) of modules with similarly straightforward wall and floor/ceiling assemblies; however, transition between the floors (namely at the stairs) had to be increased due to the redundant structure in the floor/ceiling assembly which resulted in lower ceiling heights than typically desired. The flats were not limited in ceiling height and the floor/ceiling assembly still posed some challenges relative to the sound transmission and impact noise.  In addition, the marriage line required some attention in the detailing since there were openings between modules.  This was not an issue at all with the Townhomes since the connection between modules was only vertical. However, the marriage line at the stair between upper and lower modules will be carefully reviewed during the “button up” phase [4].

Many owners assume incorrectly that modular inherently means a savings in construction cost.  As one modular vendor aptly described, modular construction uses the same lumber and drywall that a site –built project requires. The deliveries that occur to a job site still take place, just at a factory leading to basic materials costs which are more or less the same as traditional site-built construction.  It is true that the working conditions in a factory are much more efficient and result in lower material spoilage and waste, yet any cost savings in labor are offset by the fact that the modules are over-engineered to withstand the structural impacts of transport and lifting by crane. In fact, there is almost double the wood framing in a modular construction project than typical site-built project, making the modules very structurally robust. So it is not feasible that the costs would be less. Now if there were some economies of scale (not as significant on an 18-unit project), there is the possibility for the overall cost per square foot of the modules to come down significantly.  

Where the potential cost savings lie are in the construction interest carry. For any developer of affordable housing, the ability to reduce the amount of interest paid means that there are more funds available for higher quality, durable finishes or a play structure for the children who will live in the project, or the staff time to provide supportive services for the residents.

Shorter construction time also means that the units are available for residents to move in sooner meaning the owner can start collecting rents and servicing the debt faster.  This is of benefit to any multifamily developer, non-profit or market rate.  However, for the affordable housing developers, the ability to provide more units in a shorter timeline means that they have the ability to serve more hard-working families, seniors, and veterans in need of housing.

We look forward to seeing whether Schemata’s first modular construction project will be the tipping point for the affordable housing industry and for Schemata’s multifamily portfolio.

1. Housing Washington is the state’s affordable housing conference.  It is held annually and between 700-800 people attend - primarily non-profit housing developers, public housing authorities, social service providers, lenders, attorneys, architects and contractors working in the affordable housing industry.  As one of the largest of its kind, the conference draws 10% of the attendees from other parts of the country.
2. Washington State Labor & Industries will review the modular plans for adherence to building and energy codes.  L&I will issue a Gold Insignia for each module, which will dramatically decrease the permitting costs but will increase the costs for special inspections.
3. Trucking dimensions are roughly 14’ wide, 65’ long and 14’ tall.  Modules can be wider or longer, but pilot cars will be required, adding to the already high transportation costs. 
4.  Button up refers to the patching of the marriage line between modules – both vertically in the townhouse stair and horizontally between rooms of the flats.

Capitol Hill Sustainable Food Systems Potluck and Discussion

This is Domonique and I'm one of Schemata Workshop's number crunching, contract wrangling, office administrating staffers. As some of you may know, or may not, I'm studying at Bainbridge Graduate Institute getting a MBA in Sustainable Food and Agriculture systems. It's super fun! As a summer project related to my studies I'm organizing a neighborhood discussion about Sustainable Food Systems.  Here is the blurb about the event and I hope to see you there! 

------------------------------  the blurb

FRIDAY, AUGUST 23rd

4:00pm

Join the conversation about food on Capitol Hill this summer! 

The Capitol Hill EcoDistrict and Sustainable Capitol Hill are eager to hear what is important to you about food on Capitol Hill. We will be facilitating small group discussion while we playing bocce ball and croquet. Topics may include compost, urban farms, community kitchens, protecting the bees, fruit tree harvesting, food equity, and general community food resilience. Note takers will be present to ensure discussions are captured. 

Attendees will include residents, restaurant owners, business owners, urban farmers, urban eaters, gardeners, chicken wranglers, bee keepers, fruit tree gleaners, and most importantly YOU! 

Plan to bring your favorite dish to share and join us just north of the fountain at Cal Anderson Park. Even if you don't bring a potluck item join for the games and discussion. 

Co-Hosted by Sustainable Capitol Hill and the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict

What: An opportunity to talk about food systems on Capitol Hill, play lawn games with neighbors, and eat good food. 
When: Friday, August 23rd at 4:00pm
Where: Cal Anderson Park, just northeast of the fountain
Who: Everyone! Bring a dish to share, and bring your friends!

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