Clair Enlow

Clair Enlow is a freelance journalist writing about architecture, planning and history. She’s a Loeb Fellow and an honorary member of AIASeattle.

Un-Touristed, The Real Pike Place Market Revealed

The Market now shows its good architectural bones. In a few years, it will be the key linkage for a walk from Capitol Hill to the historic waterfront.

A Building That Is What It Does: UW’s New Life Sciences Center

Is it good architecture? Yes, very. The UW is joining the larger corporate and scientific world, and the Life Sciences Building is what it does. It makes knowledge workers happy and productive.

Seattle’s Asian Art Museum Discreetly Upsizes: Not Just A Connoisseur’s Jewel Box

What's new is the way the museum now opens up to views of the park. The addition stands behind and to one side, taking advantage of a dip in the ground level on the east side.

A Seattle Forester Sizes Up The Culture Wars on Australian Fires

Fires and fire conditions are the new normal, and not just in Australia. So is controversy about causes and prevention of the fires.

I-5 Seattle Mess: Don’t Just Lid It

“The execution of I-5 was a mistake. The challenge before us is to maintain the vital connection I-5 provides, but also heal the damage [on Seattle] its construction inflicted.”

Will Affordable, Small, Auxiliary Housing Ever Make It Into Seattle’s Single-Family Neighborhoods?

Thanks to neighborhood resistance, the city added crippling requirements to the law that made it impractical and maddeningly complex for existing owners to finance and build these auxiliary units.

The New Burke: Modernism With A Capital “M”

Going to the new Burke is like sneaking into the back of a factory in full swing—except this one has glass walls, lots of animal bones and fur and color.

A Tribute to Gordon Walker, Pied Piper of Northwest Architecture

Walker got caught up in the mystique of the legendary Northwest style, also called “stick modern” because of expressed wood structures. He came to Seattle and moved easily among the architects who were putting the city on the map in the 1960s.

Cities are heat islands, but there’s an urban fix

In his important new book, The Urban Fix: Resilient Cities in the War Against Climate Change, Heat Islands and Overpopulation (Routledge, 2019),Douglas Kelbaugh, formerly chair of the architecture department...

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