by "Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
Published 06/02/2017 at 08:51
by "Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
Published 06/02/2017 at 08:51
Tags: Ever-changing Seattle landscape
STARS: 0
Well in 2017, I guess it’s hip to be square... new townhomes galore.
"LongbowMkII" (longbowmkii)
06/02/2017 at 08:55, STARS: 0
That’ll certainly age well.
Was this designed in 2005?
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
06/02/2017 at 08:56, STARS: 0
The first photo: Those were all built last month. Second photo: my guess is 2015/16
"jkm7680" (jkm7680)
06/02/2017 at 09:01, STARS: 0
I hate those designs so much.
They’re extremely bland, generic, poorly built and they’re popping up everywhere.
"DipodomysDeserti" (dipodomysdeserti)
06/02/2017 at 09:02, STARS: 0
It looks like some shopping mall in San Diego. This is how they’ve been designing apartments and dorms in downtown Phoenix. It does not fit in well with a desert city.
"facw" (facw)
06/02/2017 at 09:06, STARS: 0
Like the first much more than the second. Though they’d be better if they were a story taller to incorporate a garage.
"Stapleface" (patrickgruden)
06/02/2017 at 09:10, STARS: 1
I had the exact same thought. These will look awful 20 years from now.
"Stapleface" (patrickgruden)
06/02/2017 at 09:11, STARS: 0
That second photo the landscaping looks awful. I hope the buildings weren’t “done” yet.
"Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs" (yowen)
06/02/2017 at 09:15, STARS: 1
Looks a lot like the new construction I saw when I lived in the Netherlands in the late 90's and early 2000's.
"fintail" (fintail)
06/02/2017 at 09:52, STARS: 0
It looks kind of like the soulless office complex where the bees toil 10 hours a day to pay the bloated mortgage (unless mommy and daddy helped out, which often seems to be the case).
Imagine the nice old Scandinavian people who lived in reasonably sized detached homes on modest lots before those mcmoderns were built.
"CB" (jrcb)
06/02/2017 at 10:02, STARS: 0
I lived in a place like the second design. What a turd of a building that was.
"victor" (victor)
06/02/2017 at 10:42, STARS: 0
Spec construction. Probably cheap to build and cheaply built.
"AestheticsInMotion" (aestheticsinmotion)
06/02/2017 at 10:45, STARS: 0
I judge hipness solely on sink design. If your sink isn’t picture worthy.... NOT HIP
This family in Ballard passes the hip test
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
06/02/2017 at 11:13, STARS: 1
Oh, the things I’ve seen...
"Eric @ opposite-lock.com" (theyrerolling)
06/02/2017 at 15:42, STARS: 0
Like the crap from the 1970s-90s. I don’t think the US has been building attractive residential buildings for decades. There was a little return to sense before the housing madness really ramped, but it’s been a random smattering of garbage ever since.
I actually dislike this less than some because at least it’s marginally cohesive. The 1980s-90s McMansions are hot garbage from a design standpoint. The 1970s are mostly tacky boxes (which I think started sometime in the 1960s).
"wafflesnfalafel" (wafflesnfalafel1)
06/02/2017 at 23:09, STARS: 1
but they cost about half a billion dollars each... and all the apts are going for half a million a month. (approximately)
"Svart Smart, traded in his Smart" (svartsmart)
06/03/2017 at 00:05, STARS: 0
I actually don’t mind those units in the top photo. The entrances are all in a row, facing the street!
"Svart Smart, traded in his Smart" (svartsmart)
06/03/2017 at 00:07, STARS: 0
Wow, is that ever ugly.
"RPM esq." (rpm3)
06/03/2017 at 01:26, STARS: 0
I’m largely with you on soulless architecture, but have you actually met any of those nice old Scandinavian people from Ballard? I grew up in Wallingford, and I don’t recall them ever being very nice. They were and are mostly surly, passive-aggressive, class-conscious, racist NIMBYs. Their voting records prove it. I mean, there are a lot of things I miss about the Seattle I grew up in, having come back to settle here as an adult, but most of the things I like now AND the things I miss from then were and are utterly, vocally despised and opposed by the grouchy “natives” who were, mostly, themselves transplants from the midwest in the ‘50s and ‘60s, because they seem to despise and oppose everything other than garden tours, objectively bad grocery stores, segregation, and shake siding.
"fintail" (fintail)
06/03/2017 at 01:44, STARS: 0
Wasn’t Wallingford the prime destination for somewhat monied new age hippie types in the 70s? :)
I imagine the now-almost gone Ballard people to be like someone’s grandma, concerned with baking and gardening, and doting on their family. Maybe with some regressive opinions, as common for that generation, but not totally intolerable. I still see plenty of the traits you mention of it from their aging offspring in this area (I live in Bellevue and have been in the area all my life save for a few month long stints) who bought when normal working people could still afford detached housing within a reasonable commute, are now house-rich from it, but act like they were smart rather than just blessed with loads of dumb luck in both birth timing, often pensioned retirements, and gifts from their depression-era saver parents. Seattle is more socially progressive today, but not everything has improved. In terms of the housing market, most of the metro area is a disaster, it’s the new Vancouver. These cheaply built boxes personify it in a way.
"RPM esq." (rpm3)
06/03/2017 at 01:59, STARS: 0
I agree with 9/10 of this. I guess I’m just cautioning against too much nostalgia...there was a lot about that era in Seattle that is just not worth missing compared to today’s more cosmopolitan city, despite the ridiculous real estate prices. My childhood memories of Wallingford are pretty solidly urban lower-middle-class, although your description would probably fit some of my parents’ friends: from sort of union-comfortable blue-collar families to young professional couples (some of them post-hippies with money, certainly) to old people who’d lived there forever...I suppose I didn’t grow up on the nicest street in the neighborhood, though. My parents moved to other neighborhoods within the city later on: places that, probably like Wallingford, were back then pretty normal middle class neighborhoods and are now astronomically unaffordable.
"fintail" (fintail)
06/03/2017 at 12:02, STARS: 1
I am not old enough to remember before the 80s, so there’s only so much nostalgia. People were complaining about the newbies then too (just like now, so many from California). The city is definitely more progressive than ever,and more successful than ever, but I would argue is just as segregated as ever in terms of socio-economics, and maybe isn’t really as diverse as many want to believe. Try getting that peace sign flashing Prius driving lucky generation member who bought their Magnolia house in 1985 for 90K to sell it and move south. They’d shriek in horror at the thought.