bmaryman

Since 2010, planners, designers, and community members have been actively transforming Seattle's alleys into beloved places within the city's urban fabric.

The newly opened Bell Street Park in Seattle offers the kind of "social friction" Leigh Gallagher called for in Friday's NYT with "planters, perches ... and the simplest but most innovative feature of all, a level plane between sidewalk and street."

Each month new research emerges linking public health with the built environment. Yet just a small fraction of healthcare spending goes toward reducing our exposure to unhealthy environments. Under the Affordable Care Act, that could soon change.

Seattle is reclaiming it's right of way to create a pedestrian street. Landscape architects SvR Design Co. and Hewitt presented two different concepts for the park, one that is "measured" and one that "meanders."

An open space preservation coalition led a visioning exercise for the future of Seattle, to "design Seattle's green network for the next century".