Calls for Ideas

Both the Seattle Design Commission and local chapter of the AIA are looking for ideas about re-activating vacant urban space. Click here and here for the respective announcements.

I'm of the opinion that we should submit ideas for the People's Parking Lot to both organizations but with one thing in mind. I am, obviously, all for the re-activation of unused space but my real concern is what happens when and if we recover from the current financial situation? Do the same sorts of project restart on the spaces they have left abandoned for all these months? Are the temporary projects just a band-aid for the interim? To date the activities we have organized for the lot have been in good fun, but I'm concerned that as this fun is institutionalized, it might become watered down. I do want to participate in these projects but think we need to do something with a critical edge; something that looks beyond the "wackiness" of "feeding wallabies downtown" and more to what happens when the money returns.