With kickoff just 42 hours away many conference attendees should now be arriving in town. I’ll be blogging about the CAE conference, and wanted to kick things off by welcoming everyone and offering up some ideas for a sunny Saturday in Seattle.
Seattle's Discovery Park lighthouse, with Puget Sound beyond (photo from Flickr, by Darren Knape).
First, about me: My name is Mike Weller, and I’m an intern architect at Mahlum Architects in Seattle. I graduated from the University of Washington with an MArch in 2011, and before that apprenticed as a furniture maker. I’ve lived in Seattle since 2002, and love living and practicing here.
So what to do on a Saturday before a very full three days of the CAE fall conference? Get outside! When Dave Miller lists the three main conditions that define this region’s architecture in his book “Toward a New Regionalism” all three are related to the out-of-doors: the daylight, the landscape and our most abundant building material, wood. You’ll be seeing plenty of these influences during the conference’s great lineup of tours, but the best way to appreciate them is to go for a walk in the woods. If you’ve got a car there are many destinations just outside of town, such as Tiger Mountain, but we also have a big and beautiful park you can take the bus to- Discovery Park. I love the walk there from the bus drop off down to the lighthouse, which once was a seasonal campsite for Native Americans as they moved around the Puget Sound during the summer months. If paddling is more your speed, there are a couple of boat rental options around the University of Washington, including the UW Waterfront Activites Center and the wonderful Agua Verde café.
Whatever you do, enjoy your Saturday, and be ready for a full ticket come Sunday. If you have any questions just send me a tweet: @mikeitecture or a message here on AIA KnowledgeNet. I love searching for cheap eats here in town, and would be happy to give any hungry visitors my advice.