Seattle's waterfront design team brings a bold vision
This may be a bit of a risk, but the selection means that the waterfront planning effort could get a valuable dose of quirkiness.
Stuart Silk
James Corner of the New York City-based design firm "james corner field operations" beat out three other outstanding teams vying for the design of Seattle's Central Waterfront. Corner's team took home the $6 million prize from teams headed by Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, and two other teams headed by firms of national repute, Wallace Roberts Todd and Michael VanValkenburg.
The winning team will determine the overall framework for the waterfront, with other designers responsible for individual pieces.
The corner field operations team includes a number of other architectural firms, among them four that are local: Mithun, The Berger Partnership, Herrera, and Jason Toft.
According to members of the selection committee, Corner impressed them with a thorough understanding of Seattle's unique blend of a "tough" industrial past, intricate natural systems, and an increasingly urbane character. He also articulated a powerful and compelling vision for a waterfront of varied civic spaces.
In announcing the winner Tuesday morning in City Hall, Peter Hahn, director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, which will be managing the contract, declared, "This will be a hundred year plan. It will be a legacy for many generations." He credited Corner for advancing bold ideas for the front yard of Seattle, creating not just a singular big park, but a series of places that will attract residents and visitors alike.
Responding to questions reflecting a suspicion that the project will bring nothing but exclusive condominiums and hotels, he said, "This is public right of way — public space — it's not about development." He then clarified by saying that neighboring properties would be able to take better advantage of views and access to the waterfront.
"For decades buildings turned their backs away from the noise and bulk of the viaduct," Hahn said. "Now they will be able to face the other way." He also explained that design plans might call for small pavilions containing food and services that can help activate the public spaces.
The city has secured about half of the almost $600 million necessary for design and construction of a new surface boulevard, shoreline restoration, and park spaces. It has sufficient funds now to begin design work, which will include a substantial public involvement process. Given that the Alaskan Way Viaduct is not scheduled to come down for at least five more years, there should be ample time for design, public input, considering alternatives, environmental analysis, and obtaining additional funding.
This is some time to wait for a grand new vision to unfold. But Hahn added that field operations' proposal included ideas for more immediate and shorter-term changes. Corner has promised to commit much of his own time to this project, which overlaps another design effort to redesign and rebuild the seawall. Hopefully, both project teams will inform each other's work.
Initial phases of the design process will examine the larger downtown setting and how the waterfront can be linked to neighborhoods and districts – both mature and emerging. The first six months will include a high-profile public process to garner interest and ideas.
The choice of field operations is a bit risky, as they are only 15 years old and have a limited number of built projects, in contrast to the other teams. But their projects, such as the High Line and Fresh Kills in New York have received considerable praise from many quarters. They have a bit of an "edgy" reputation, combining intellectual passion with unusual ways of thinking about how people might use urban space. Much like Rem Koolhaas’ approach for the Central Library, we might expect detailed, academic rigor supporting atypical and even quirky solutions.
But our waterfront has been in need of a good dose of quirkiness. The bland array of background buildings and an uneventful streetscape has kept most of us who live here from using it, except when relatives from Iowa are in town. It's been mainly a place for tourists to hang out, take tours, and eat deep-fried fish.
Now we have the chance to have our own urban esplanade, joining cities such as Barcelona, Boston and Sydney that have repurposed their shorelines. Field operations, along with its affiliated national and local designers and artists, will soon be gettin’ busy.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Sep 22, 4:12 p.m. Inappropriate
I am already tired of the narrative that "The bland array of background buildings and an uneventful streetscape has kept most of us who live here from using it..." You can't even see the bland array of background buildings because of the viaduct, and it's only recently that BNSF has gotten themselves completely untangled from the area and made those railroad tracks superfluous.
The businesses that used the old waterfront, such as shipping, fish boat unloading, and ship chandleries, have disappeared. The entire economy of the city as changed. We're now re-imagining the waterfront in terms of potential uses for the city and region. Fortunately, many of us can think of those potential uses in fairly concrete terms- a park to eat lunch in, a place to meet Puget Sound's ecology, see the sea creatures in the Aquarium, and possibly go wading at a public beach. Unfortunately, it is very hard to come up with definite statements about this trip into the future.
The Esplanade in Barcelona is undoubtedly fine- and most of the reason for that is that it is in Barcelona. For our waterfront to function in that way, we would need streetcars and trams to bring people without their cars. Fresh locally caught seafood would help. What used to be considered staples for waterfront park development- rental rowboats and a bandstand for the evening- would help even more.
The latest developments are another Rorshach blot test for a Seattle that shuddered and decided to go slow after seeing the Edgewater built. There are lessons in our history- let's not lose them in a bunch of careless talk.
Posted Wed, Sep 22, 5:11 p.m. Inappropriate
I suppose you regard the Library and the Experience Music Project as "quirky". I think neither advances the interest of the City and its citizens. And, by the way, I have never seen the High Line, only photos, but I notice no one is publishing photos of what is under the High Line. If it's really a good idea to cover a street with an elevated park then we have to assume that light-filled streets are expendable. That is quirky.
Posted Wed, Sep 22, 5:14 p.m. Inappropriate
I've got it. Let's refurbish the viaduct and use it for another 40 years. It's quirky and edgy and all that "working class" imagery stuff that people who don't have anything to do seem to admire so much. That way, those of us who still have to go from one place to another to make a living can still get around.
We'll save 2+ billion and counting too.
Posted Wed, Sep 22, 5:21 p.m. Inappropriate
Almost forgot. Don't forget to sign the SCAT petition. It's never too late to do the right thing.
Posted Wed, Sep 22, 6:53 p.m. Inappropriate
I'd love to see the East & West streets reconnected all the way to the water.
The railroads cut them off way back when.
It would be a nice symbol of the locals regaining a connection to our front yard.
Posted Wed, Sep 22, 6:57 p.m. Inappropriate
I heart jimrolls.
I've got it. Let's refurbish the viaduct and use it for another 40 years. It's quirky and edgy and all that "working class" imagery stuff that people who don't have anything to do seem to admire so much. That way, those of us who still have to go from one place to another to make a living can still get around.
We'll save 2+ billion and counting too.
— jmrolls
Posted Wed, Sep 22, 9:22 p.m. Inappropriate
I figure it was James Corner Fields Philadelphia Pier Park that made the sale. Think Pier 62-63. At the Wednesday presentation, the video interviews caught my eye as most representative of Seattle's future. In the background stood a defiant 100 year old waterfront warehouse antiquity worth enhancing while preserving.
Consider pushing the seawall west 20' or so at the old Washington Street ferry terminal which seems too close to the roadway. It would somewhat straighten the bend of Alaskan Way and improve the plaza/pedestrian space there.
I've seen photos of the old Alaskan Way. It was one huge unlined open roadway from seawall to building fronts facing west. Conveyance vehicles arriving at Alaskan Way from east/west streets had options for turning north and south. Officially, there was a frontage road (railroad way) plus Alaskan Way. Someone besides myself has got to address such traffic management considerations since SDOT refuses to do it. For the thousandth time, a 2-lane frontage road in addition to the 4-lane Alaskan Way may be necessary, children.
Posted Thu, Sep 23, 5:16 p.m. Inappropriate
The article says "The city has secured about half of the almost $600 million necessary for design and construction of a new surface boulevard, shoreline restoration, and park spaces:"
1. What budget(s) is the secured portion from: from Seattle, or the State, or??? Any of it from the viaduct replacement budget?
1(a). Are any of them subject to the budget cutting that's just beginning in the state and in Seattle?
2. What other potential sources might make up the unbedgeted remainder?
3. What if the cost of design, or construction, exceeds the budget?
Posted Thu, Sep 30, 10:21 p.m. Inappropriate
We should improve the Seattle aquarium. It could be so much better.
Posted Thu, Oct 28, 1:17 a.m. Inappropriate
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