Imagine Tacoma – Crane Ready Projects
What is the urban design quality of that scary little park located between the Rust Building and Park Plaza North along Pacific Avenue? Other than when the Park Plaza Projects were dedicated – has anyone actually performed at the little stage among the trees? This space is much more habitable for a hibernating Fremont Troll than actually supporting human occupancy (being on the North side of the Rust Building and seeing very little sunlight).
So imagine filling this site in with a temporary structure (affordably constructed for a fifteen to twenty year lifespan) that allows for removal at such a time that the Park Plaza North is finally redeveloped (sic). With the pending glut of shipping containers at the Port of Tacoma – and the renewed interest in shipping container architecture from the works of Shigeru Ban and recent design competitions – Tacoma could immediately commence filling the vast number of vacant asphalt and concrete surfaces with ‘Crane Ready Projects.’
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Filed under: Imagine Tacoma
29 comments
E Erik B. February 11, 2009
Yes, that place is useless and a empty blight created by misguided “space makers” years ago which has made yet another Tacoma spooky dead zone.
Fill this hole in.
U uoaaa181 February 11, 2009
I love this space and how it is. Often I’ve imagined art installations being placed here and have some ideas brewing about movies/performances/installations. It’s a great urban opportunity for unexpected events. Why fill it with another vacant building when we already have so many in this town? There are vacant lots everywhere here. Let’s build great buildings there and start to encourage use of our urban treasures instead.
Similar with the Spanish Steps…wouldn’t it be great to have performance artists perform there!
J jamie from thriceallamerican February 11, 2009
Definitely a weird and shady site. But it would actually be cool to have the city (or BIA, or Downtown Merchants, or whatever) seize upon some of these little mini-performance venues downtown (this place, the spot by Albers Mill, Tollefson, etc.) for summer outdoor concerts…
T Thorax O'Tool February 11, 2009
As much as I appreciate the reuse of shipping containers, take a look on the web. there are hundreds of more interesting arrangements than that.
Not to sound rude, but that arrangement is about as aesthetically pleasing as Park Place North is.
I do think using these hidden “urban stages” is a fabulous idea, though.
Of course, I’d also rather see the city FDISK the PPN and reinstall something else with bare minimum, a multi-level system with a pleasing GUI.
E Erik B. February 11, 2009
Definitely a weird and shady site. But it would actually be cool to have the city (or BIA, or Downtown Merchants, or whatever) seize upon some of these little mini-performance venues downtown (this place, the spot by Albers Mill, Tollefson, etc.) for summer outdoor concerts
Yep. That’s how it was designed years ago. A raised platform with electricity to it.
However, the entrances to the Rust Building do not enter into it. Instead, there is a sky bridge above deflecting all of the pedestrians away from it.
There is actually a massive hole in back of the raised platform (check it out during lunch) where the stairs go down and then back up the hill making it a CPTED disaster with many hidden areas.
On the other side of the area is the dead North Park Plaza Parking Garage.
With no life spilling on it and dead edges and a bizzare raised platform removing it further from access, it has created an ever present dead zone.
Another example in downtown Tacoma of good intentions yet incompetent urban design.
No doubt the area was opened with ribbon cutting and won an award.
The area could be recovered if the North Park Plaza Parking Garage was knocked down and the new building had a restaurant that spilled onto it and the Rust Building removed the skybridge so people would walk on the street through the area.
R RR Anderson February 11, 2009
this location with its absence of sunlight is a perfect spot for a moss garden or mushroom farm.
J Jesse February 11, 2009
Hopefully something will be done with Park Plaza North (PPN) before anything like this project ever gets off the ground.
A downtown mall would be great at PPN’s location. Is the block wide enoug though?
A Anike Maj February 12, 2009
I’ve considered performing there in the past, and actually am planning on busking there once the weather warms up again.
Also, I don’t see why all the open spaces in the city need to be filled. I would be very sad to lose that one, as I often sit there, in happy solitude, and stare at the trees.
D DavidS February 12, 2009
“These trees need to go…” To digress, have you seen the trees going in along the LID project? Put some proper street trees along the street and proper park trees in the park. Oh and that lovely look out built into the intersection of St. Helens & Market has a nice axial view – with a tree planted in the middle of it. Aaargh!
Hopefully, the proposed Urban Forestry package being discussed in the Environment & Public Works Cmte as I write resolves some of these issues. We can only hope.
T Thorax O'Tool February 12, 2009
@ David S… Ginkgo biloba… not native but a very good urban tree. Pollution resistant too!
@ Jesse… a block long is entirely sufficient when you build up. Think just how much office/retail/hotel/residences you could get on that site if you went 40 stories.
@ RR… brutalist architecture is exactly what you need if you want to make people feel even more uncomfortable. I think PPN is brutal enough that we won’t need to cover that niche for the next 1000 years.
I’ll take an empty lot over most of the examples shown in the wikipedia link.
FDISK the PPN!
let this be our battle cry…
P Phil February 12, 2009
Other than moving something there we don’t like seeing somewhere else, I don’t see much opportunity in this ‘park’ (term used loosely). It has been this dark & creepy since I was a kid.
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The space might make a cool doggie day care with a couple of shipping containers shaped into ‘Fido’s Haus’. A downtown amenity for neurotic pet owners in the surrounding office buildings? I don’t know….
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Providence RI is a good case study for scary squares such as this. They strung commercial holiday lights into some of their more desolate urban crevices. Felt very much like you were in a U2 video & before you knew it, cultural creativity began to show up (helped, no doubt, by RISD & Brown University).
V Vlorg, the Mighty February 12, 2009
The idea is awful, I expected better from David Boe.
Forget shipping containers like that, whe should use them as single-story generic restaurants and class F office space.
I mean, that’s all they build here anyway.
D drizell February 12, 2009
Living in and loving a trade-dependent city like Tacoma once made me want to incorporate shipping containers into my own architectural portfolio. However, I didn’t end up doing such a project, and for that I’m quite glad. Shipping containers have been done to death already. There are actually design competitions out there that require you to construct buildings out of them. Plus, I count myself among the fans of these hidden public space gems. It’s a great place to read a book or study while being surrounded by so much activity and not being overwhelmed by it.
D DavidS February 12, 2009
@11 TOT: Ginkgo biloba… not native but a very good urban tree. Pollution resistant too!
Some in the LID may be ginkgos, but certainly not all. It’s that lack of rhythm and design that I’m more concerned about. Why do plants regularly seem to be an afterthought on projects?
(As a side note: Ginkgos are questionable street trees due to their massive forms. I’m with you on their resistances, but any tree that routinely grows over 60×60 is going to have a rough go of it on a downtown street. I like the ginkgos & their history, but let’s give them a place where they will be happy.)
M Mofo from the Hood February 12, 2009
Hey Mr. Boe:
Let’s make this concept Tacoma specific. I’m sure that you’re familar with railroad coach diner’s. You know, the 20th century practice of converting actual railroad cars into cafes that are fixed onto the cityscape.
Well, how about for this little Tacoma park if instead of stacking shipping containers, that we stack streetcars? Then if it ever comes to pass that Tacoman’s want to revive rolling streetcar service…Well, you know, just add wheels.
C Chelsea February 12, 2009
I walk past this space every day. No matter how you look at it (from Commerce, Pacific or from above) it’s always dark, dank and filled with debris (despite the best efforts of the BIA). Getting rid of the cement pyramid on the Pacific side is a good first step to lightening things up and making it a more inviting public space.
T Thorax O'Tool February 13, 2009
FDISK the PPN!
Z ZOMG February 13, 2009
what the hell is fdisk?
R RR Anderson February 13, 2009
zomg:
fdisk is leet speak for the f word. FYI.
M Mofo from the Hood February 13, 2009
What the fdisk is leet speak?
R RR Anderson February 13, 2009
watch the ’90 movie ‘hackers’ starring Angelina Jossy to be schooled in the fine art of poser leetspeak.
T Thorax O'Tool February 14, 2009
fdisk ain’t 733t, people.
it’s a DOS command to erase a hard drive…
But we can go nerdier than that:
rm -rf ~/*
T Thorax O'Tool February 14, 2009
Go ahead. Open up a terminal on your shiny new Mac and run the above code.
Just type
rm -rf ~/*
and press enter. Go on… I dare you.
R RR Anderson February 14, 2009
put that thing back in your pants TO’T. you not fooling anyone with ur haxor script kiddie jiv3.
T Thorax O'Tool February 14, 2009
That’s not being a script kiddie nor a haxx0r.
W Whitney staff February 14, 2009
Ummm…. Did I get lost? I thought I was in David Boe’s column.
Let’s keep it on topic please people.
T Thorax O'Tool February 14, 2009
The topic veered off on a tangent based on a call to raze (or fdisk or rm -rf) Park Place North (PPN) instead of filling the gaps around it with recycled steel shipping containers.
Apparently my choice of using computer jargon instead of more common terminology proved to be a poor choice.
——> My original point is, was and still will be: Reusing shipping containers is a great idea, but not in the way proposed by David Boe.
We need to get PPN razed and something worthwhile built on that piece of prime real estate.
J Jesse February 14, 2009
I bet if you built a lot of these container condos up by Yakima and 25th-ish, with a view of the actual port, you’d get lots of interest in them. They’d fit in well around the old brick brewery towards the freeway too. That’d be a cool neighborhood!
Can I help fdisk PPN? Let’s have a party when that thing is finally gone.
T Thorax O'Tool February 15, 2009
We can have a party on the PPN’s smoldering ruins, and then throw a real party when something gets built there… instead of it sitting as a big hole or empty lot for years (as I’m afraid might happen).