Last year, Seattle-based Mithun Architects designed the Center for Urban Agriculture, tailor made for a site on 9th Avenue and Olive Way downtown. “We wanted to demonstrate that a project of this type is feasible in a downtown setting,” says Mithun’s Bonnie Duncan. Behold, a vertical farm for the city.

Fantastic, is it not?

Each residential unit is retrofitted from a combination of two or three recycled shipping containers to create studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments. The CUA employs a “shelf system” within its superstructure to speed construction time through off-site assembly and crane erection techniques.

The CUA reintroduces 1.35 acres of native habitat, farmland and community gathering space to its urban environment. Birds, insects and native plants would inhabit the 22,000 square feet of planters and upper terraces. The use of native plants increases the variety of insects that support the food chain. For example, maple trees support 18 species of insects while native oaks support 1,800 species of insects. The goal is to increase biodiversity in the city that will begin to support broader species of birds. A 19,000 sq. ft. chicken farm operates on the CUA’s lower terrace.

Other than the fact that it relates poorly to the street (which could be easily remedied), here’s the problem: Nobody has stepped up to the plate to build the thing. “Every once in a while there are murmurings; we just have to find a developer who is up for it,” says Duncan. “I could get a call from the Sheik of Dubai to say that he needs a 100-story high-rise farm—that could be where it happens first.”

Seattle, don’t let Dubai show you up again.

^{Tony Weathers’s Guns N’ Butter (2008), brass rods, butter, wall installation}

At Crawl Space. (Gallery web site here.)

^{Katina Huston’s Mechanical Repeat (2008), ink on mylar, 36 by 36 inches*}

At Davidson Contemporary. (Gallery web site here.)

^{*Hint: See the pedals?}

^{A photograph from Andrew Miksys’s Roma series}

At Nelson Hancock Gallery in Brooklyn.

^{Napoleon Sarony and Benjamin Richardson’s The Actor Henry E. Dixey (circa 1884), albumen print}

At Henry Art Gallery. (Museum web site here.)

^{A detail from Timea Tihanyi’s Touching in the Bright Space (After Andreas Vesalius, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Plate 49 Book 4), 2008, sewn and cut felt, thread, mylar; 82 by 28 by 2 inches}

At the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. (Here’s a review of the Seattle-based artist’s last show, at Gallery4Culture.)

^{Installation shot of Jenny Heishman’s rain-activated Water Mover (2008), steel, bucket}

Water Mover is a permanent public piece at Ernst Park; its dedication ceremony is today at 4 pm. (Park web site here.)

^{Title sequence from Kelly Mark’s REM (2008), two-channel video installation}

At Platform Gallery. (Gallery web site here.) Closes Saturday, May 3.

This week’s cover photo, by Los Angeles-based photographer Alex Prager, is part of Sugar and Spice, an exhibition at the Photographic Center Northwest, May 2–28. There’s an opening reception Friday May 2, 6–8 pm.

Alexandra (2007), Courtesy of Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, and the artist.

^{Skull by Anonymous, 2008, watercolor, 10 by 8 inches}

At SOIL. (Gallery web site here.)