Olson Kundig Architects:

Shadowboxx

San Juan Islands, Washington

Design Principal

Tom Kundig

Shadowboxx responds to a primal desire to develop an intimate understanding of a place while exploring the tradition of gathering around a fire. The site for this island retreat is a remote, windy point of land in the San Juan Islands in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Tucked between a thicket of trees and a rising bank, the house angles toward the bluff with its 50-foot drop to the sea and view of the Olympic Mountains beyond.

Composed of several elements—living space, bathhouse, and private guest room—Shadowboxx sits in a natural clearing created by the strong winds that force back the trees from the rocky bank. The swept-back roof form reinforces the structure’s deference to its windy site. The building masses are modeled by winds off the water; the exterior cladding is allowed to weather and rust; and shifting doors, shutters, walls, and roofs constantly modulate the threshold between inside and outside. The house is more about the softness of the shadows than the hardness of objects.

Inside the home, layers are revealed slowly. A gallery runs the length of the house, with rooms spilling off it. Two steel-clad doors slide open to reveal the main living space, called the cloud room for its ever-changing atmospherics. A glass-walled bunkroom contains six custom-designed rolling platforms that serve both as sofas and beds, enabling the room itself to morph in function. Exterior awning shutters face the water and can be closed for protection from the elements or for security when the owner is away. Tactile materials are used throughout the house, including rammed earth floors, reclaimed oak floor planks, unpainted gypsum boards and steel walls, corrugated steel siding and roofing, and reclaimed scaffolding planks for the ceiling.

Fox News (not the Babylon Bee) reports on another democrat milestone in establishing Racial Equity.

Washington state lawmakers introduced a bill this month that would reduce penalties for drive-by shootings with the aim of “promoting racial equity.”

The bill, introduced by Democratic Representatives Tarra Simmons and David Hackney ahead of the state’s 2022 legislative session, would eliminate drive-by shootings as the basis for elevating a first-degree murder charge to aggravated murder in the first degree, which carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.

Drive-by shootings were added to the list of aggravating factors for murder charges in 1995. Other aggravating factors include the murder of law enforcement officers, murders committed by inmates while they are behind bars, and murder-for-hire schemes.

Seattle police responded to a third shooting incident Tuesday evening in the 200 block of Yesler Way in the Pioneer Square neighborhood in September.

Seattle police responded to a third shooting incident Tuesday evening in the 200 block of Yesler Way in the Pioneer Square neighborhood in September. (Seattle Police Department)

The aggravating factor that the bill would eliminate reads: “The murder was committed during the course of or as a result of a shooting where the discharge of the firearm… is either from a motor vehicle or from the immediate area of a motor vehicle that was used to transport the shooter or the firearm.”

Rep. Simmons, who represents a district in western Washington, argued that “it’s clear that it was targeted at gangs that were predominantly young and Black.”

“I believe in a society that believes in the power of redemption,” she told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Murder is murder no matter where the bullet comes from but locking young people up and throwing away the key is not the answer.”

RTWT

Derek Hunter suggests letting the lefties have their own People’s Republic on the Left Coast. Maybe more of them will flock there and leave the rest of us alone.

Be honest, if we let the mutant mob have Seattle, would you really miss it? We’ve already gotten all the good music out of it, coffee is everywhere, so what else do they bring to the table? If you feel as though you missed your chance to visit the Space Needle, they have a similar enough tower in Toronto. And you can catch scabies in any number of third world countries with much better climates. So I say, let them have it.

For that matter, give them the whole state. They inflicted Microsoft on the country, so think of leaving them to the wolves as revenge for whatever version of Windows last crashed on you, which is to say whatever the latest version of Windows there is. Toss in Oregon, too, because what good has ever come from Oregon?

That’s an honest question. I’m sure they’ve added something besides trees, I just have no idea what it is. Nor do I care. Whatever it is (beaver pelts, maybe?), I’ll happily forego to create whatever they end up calling a country that will undoubtedly be a magnet for like-minded leftists, thereby ridding this country of a significant percentage of those carcinogens known as progressives.

Let them create Utopia, or at least see how it goes.

RTWT

Some News Service:

NORTH BEND, Wash. — One man is dead and another has been injured in a cougar attack in Washington, authorities said Saturday.

The two men were on a morning mountain bike ride in the foothills near North Bend when the attack occurred, King County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ryan Abbott said.

The cougar ran into the woods, he said. The Seattle Times reported state officials tracked, shot and killed the cougar just before 3 p.m.

North Bend is about 30 miles east of Seattle. The injured victim, who is in his 40s, was airlifted to a hospital. He was initially listed in serious condition but has since been upgraded to satisfactory.

A search and rescue team has been dispatched to recover the body of the deceased man.

KIRO-TV reported that the injured man called 911 shortly before 11 a.m. and shouted, “Can you hear me? Help!” and then the call hung up.

Authorities found the cougar standing over the body of the dead biker, the station reported.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the two victims were biking together or separately.

That’s the Left Coast for you.

Coastal cities and suburbs densely inhabited by granola-crunching moonbats on bicycles exist just a short distance from genuine wilderness. The crunchies love the scenery and think nothing of going off into an out-of-doors shared with large predators unarmed, unprepared, and unaware.

In 1900, nobody would have considered going off into mountain lion country unable to defend himself. Today, the overwhelming majority of Left Coast-ers would not dream of carrying a gun, and a sizable percentage will protest the shooting of a man-eating mountain lion.