engineering

Sinking Ship

Sinking Ship is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sinking Ship rather than just read about it. In short: The Sinking Ship is a multi-story parking garage in Pioneer Square, Seattle, United States, bound by James Street to the north, Yesler Way to the south, and 2nd Avenue to the east, and just steps away from the Pioneer Building on the site of the former Occidental Hotels and Seattle Hotel. After the Seattle Hotel was demolished in 1961, the Sinking Ship was built as part of a neighborhood redesign.

Key takeaways

Sinking Ship belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sinking Ship to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sinking Ship from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Sinking Ship is a multi-story parking garage in Pioneer Square, Seattle, United States, bound by James Street to the north, Yesler Way to the south, and 2nd Avenue to the east, and just steps away from the Pioneer Building on the site of the former Occidental Hotels and Seattle Hotel. After the Seattle Hotel was demolished in 1961, the Sinking Ship was built as part of a neighborhood redesign. It was designed by Gilbert H. Mandeville (engineer) and Gudmund B. Berge (architect) of the Seattle firm Mandeville and Berge, and built in 1965. They also designed the Logan Building and an addition to the First Presbyterian Church downtown, the Ballard branch of Seattle Public Library, and two buildings at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 (the Alaska Building and the Transportation 21 Building). A writer for HistoryLink described the Sinking Ship as "that skid road parking garage whose nihilistic construction depresses the flatiron block where James Street and Yesler Way meet at Pioneer Square." It is owned by the Kubota–Fujii family, who had acquired the Seattle Hotel in 1941. Doris Kubota, from the same family, called the garage the "ugliest building in all of Seattle". It was also used during the 2001 Mardi Gras riot as a staging area for police and city officials. The Seattle Monorail Project proposed a monorail station at the site of the Sinking Ship, which it hoped to acquire through condemnation. The Kubota family disputed the condemnation lawsuit, stating their intention to build housing and retail at the site. In 2019, the parking lot was named the "coolest parking lot" in the United States by the design publication Architizer and London-based Looking4.com. As of 2022, the garage is managed by Diamond Parking.

References

External links

Audio history of Sinking Ship from Washington State Department of Transportation

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sinking Ship

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sinking Ship claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sinking Ship before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sinking Ship ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sinking Ship

In research: Sinking Ship appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sinking Ship in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sinking Ship is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1965 establishments in Washington (state), Buildings and structures completed in 1965, Garages (parking) in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sinking Ship outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sinking Ship in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sinking Ship means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sinking Ship out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sinking Ship in simple terms?

Why does Sinking Ship matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sinking Ship?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sinking Ship.