For the most part, I actually like the latest incarnation of Westwood, and the looks of the buildings.
I think a big part of it is that I despised the previous renovation, around ten years earlier. I thought the "improvements" in that one looked cheap, and plastic.
That big, arch shaped sign that adorned the Barton St. side of the mall between Pay-n-Save/Payless Drugs, and the backside of QFC, was hideous, and probably the cheapest looking part of all. It had those vertical, cylindrical, perforated columns that should have never made it to the architectual drawings, let alone off of them.
Not only did I not like their appearance, they were dumb in a practical sense as well. They were the perfect invite for those that choose to litter to cram their crap through.
Then, of course, the grounds maintenance staff is stuck wasting their time, fumbling around, trying to dig the crap out of them, with a broom, or whatever, from the gap between the bottom of the cylinder, and it's base. I wonder how often they got a talking to for taking too much time to do their rounds because of that wasted time.
There's no way the design team should have been surprised that that problem would arise, they just thought it looked cool.
The only thing that bothered me about seeing that previous version go, is that being done only ten or twelve years earlier, it seemed like an incredible waste of the then new materials. Even if some could be recycled, I'm sure that much went to a landfill.
All that being said, it does seem to have a bit of a more spread out feel to it, IMHO, which is kind of ironic, since there was talk off and on for many years of slapping a lid over the original main section.
Mike
westseattleblog
West Seattle Blog
West Seattle Blog
