When visitors approach the intersection in front of Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market in the heart of downtown, the surprise is palpable when they realize that a ‘go’ for pedestrians lets people walk any way they want. Los Angeles recently followed suit, introducing its own omnidirectional ‘scramble intersection’ at a notoriously dangerous crossroads, making it much safer.

At Hollywood and Highland, designers have taken things a step further, adding an X-shaped layer of walking indicators (zebra stripes and white-framed boxes) to make it clear how people are permitted (and encouraged) to cross the streets diagonally through the center.

Popularized in the 1950s by Henry Barnes, the concept is quite simple: when pedestrians get their green light, anyone can cross anywhere during the limited window, then the lanes are given back over to cars and the process repeats. In the months since this latest scrambler was introduced, there has been only a single accident.

Scramble intersections can be found around the world, but are still limited in quantity, focused in areas where the safety gains are greatest. In dense cities like Tokyo, Japan, they can be marvelously busy at times (as shown above). In Seattle, meanwhile, the success of the Pike Street and First Avenue scrambler has led to others being introduced around the city; perhaps LA will continue to follow its lead.

Serving a nomadic homeless shanty town known as Nickelsville, the Impossible City project involves a group of a teenagers who are creating not just tiny houses but also solar power stations, composting latrines and a community kitchen.

Nickelsville moves from place to place, going where land is available since its residents cannot afford to pay rents. Slowly but surely, thanks to this project, its rickety collection of tarps, tents and donated Home Depot shacks are being replaced by modest but functional shelters.

The challenge is non-trivial – the structures need to be somewhat easy to disassemble and move while also meeting city code and basic safety standards. Backing the youth builders is Sawhorse Revolution, an area non-profit that teaches kids how to use tools and build structures.

While many institutions, organizations and governments take an all-or-nothing approach, trying and generally failing to get the homeless off the streets, this project attempts to take on the actual situation on the ground, bridging the gap between sleeping on the streets and having a permanent residence.

Rainworks are pieces of street art that only appear when wet, featuring messages, images and interactive games that work great for a city infamous for its frequent precipitation. The idea, in part, is to encourage people to enjoy the rain, and reward those who go out and play in the gathering drizzle.

Peregrine Church creates these works which, while temporary, can last for months before degrading – the water-repellent sprays used are eco-friendly and will biodegrade when the designs eventually dissolve.

Neverwet and its analogs are not exactly new materials, nor is the idea of applying it to stenciled graffiti art novel, but the variety of Church’s work is compelling, as is his targeting of its results to different neighborhoods in an oft-soaked city, from the U District to Ballard and beyond. Some of the vignettes are simply playful images, or geek and gaming references, while others carry water usage-related messages.

Indeed, this seems the perfect set of urban settings – while Seattle has frequent rains it rarely has downpours, meaning the ground is often moist but the weather rarely so bad that it is difficult to go out and experience it.

In the esoteric realm of ‘nail houses’ – properties whose owners refuse to sell them to developers at any cost – Edith Macefield‘s may be the most well-known, but her century-old home now appears doomed to face a wrecking ball.

An auction for the property was just completed but no buyers were found – anyone purchasing the house would also have had to adopt its existing $500,000 mortgage, which, despite its fame, was not enough to attract either curious collectors or real estate developers.

Macefield herself turned down an offer for $1,000,000 from developers trying to buy up the land for a commercial complex, hence the construction of a giant concrete wall on three sides as their project went ahead without this last little lot.

In a strange but heartwarming twist: before she passed away in 2008, Macefield befriended the superintendent of the surrounding commercial development. Apparently she ultimately enjoyed the attention and company brought by the development.

As Macefield aged, this superintendent began taking her to appointments and purchasing her groceries and their friendship grew. In the end, she willed him the property – in an attempt to respect the gift, he then tried to make it work as an office or restaurant.

At this point, the house has been boarded up for some time now and the failed sale leaves few possibilities outside of its destruction. It has no historic preservation status, for instance, that might further delay its demolition.

Some fans hoped Pixar Animation Studios, producers of ‘UP’, would buy the house for publicity purposes and spare it the wrecking ball, but there has been no news on that front.

Though there are many holdout homes around the world, hers has become a symbol of resistance – her defiance a story that will certainly outlive the structure itself, whatever its fate.

How much more creative could you be if you were working in a stunning faceted glass dome every day? Some lucky Amazon workers will get to find out, as the City of Seattle’s design panel has approved plans for new structures at the company’s headquarters. Designed by international firm NBBJ, the project will consist of three connected biospheres with a steel framework.

Each of the 25 to 35-meter-high biospheres will offer five floors of flexible work spaces along with about 65,000 square feet of open green space with both new and mature trees. The futuristic-looking design is meant to feel like a public park, and will be part of a larger green space known as ‘Block 19.’

The geometric pattern of the steel is is called a ‘Catalan Skin,’ based on a pattern of numbers in mathematics. The resulting shapes look a bit like sand dollars.

Not everyone is a fan of the planned additions. Curbed Seattle said “Our initial thought was that they resembled spores, slowly growing and spreading across the city until they encase all our trees.”