Cascade of Ideas for Stalled Construction Sites

The results are in on the Design Commission’s call for ideas for vacant project sites. The response to our call was overwhelming – we had 83 entries! The ideas for how to temporarily use stalled project sites covered a broad gamut and it was clear that people had gone to amazing effort to think through and put down their ideas.

The Design Commissioners looked carefully at the submissions and it was very hard to narrow down the choices.

The idea of this effort is not to hand out an award and be done with it. It’s also not to give out grants for projects. Instead, we’ve asked the community to think about this problem and engage with us in finding more creative ways to deal with the issue of vacant lots; something cities are faced with all across the nation.

Now that we have these wonderful ideas, we want to showcase them and make them available. Those listed below that have a link have given us permission to publish their ideas.

We will be bringing the finalists together with people who can help them bring their projects to fruition. We hope to connect these finalists with vacant property owners, developers, and City of Seattle representatives so they can discuss the kind of support needed to implement these creative ideas.

The 13 Finalists (those with no link have not supplied permission to publish their ideas)
Community Rink – Street hockey, bike polo, dodge ball rink
ParkOurPark – A parkour park
Kaji Court – A futsal/soccer court
Rising-Shining – A temporal light installation
ViDea Video Performance – Video projection
Neighborhood Watch Theatre Company – Multi-purpose public event space
Blackboard Jungle – Blackboards installation
Sail Away – Installation of “sails” and lighting
Art = Graffiti – Temporary canvases for graffiti
ViVi Traveling Cinema – Film and food-mobile
Denny Garden – Transient urban farm, produce stalls, and food carts
Surface Lot Container Garden – Community food garden
Seattle’s Sunken Stages – Live, improvised, audio performances

The 13 honorary mentions (those with no link have not supplied permission to publish their ideas)
Phytomediating Crops – Temporary urban agriculture fields
Pieces of Eight – Surround sound, site specific, musical happening
Lux Park – Climatised, vegetated, transportable bubble structure
Urban Adventure Circuit – Sports infrastructure at three sites
Deployable Greenhouses – Temporary greenhouses for elementary school kids
Lake City Activated Landscape – Flexible furnishing for skateboarding, dancing, performance
Space.city Mobil Pavilion – To increase awareness about art, architecture, and urban space
Shapes of Change – Sculptural plywood shapes with LED lighting as urban furniture to activate space
The Page a Day – Illustration and photography used to create a neighborhood “story book”
Seattle Photo-Themed Stand-ins – Plywood stands or painted walls with Seattle specific photo ops
Modular Approach to Building a Sustainable City – Open space, gardens, gathering spaces and more
Sculpting Social Space – Shipping containers create sculpture, open space, a stage and canvas for art
Pollinator Pathway – Series of planted spaces to illustrate urban biodiversity

Other Submissions (those with no link have not supplied permission to publish their ideas)
Reclaiming the Bridge – a catalyst to activate a vacant South Park bridgehead
Beer Garden-Dog Park-Outdoor Movies-Sculpture Mounds – many uses on one site
Vacant Lots to Flower Pots – soil from Sound Transit and flowers on it
Environmentally Sustainable Design Demonstration Project – thoughts and ideas
Visible Urban Oasis – terraced landscape, sandbags, water elements, gardening, cisterns
Movement – dancers movement areas
Seapod – pea patch
Fill the Void – amphitheater and mobile marketplace
Indie Scuplture Park – art made by local emerging artists
Barge Right In – art and events at Washington Street Public Boat Landing
Urban Amphitheater – green lawn facing a water wall
Delridge Produce Stand – organic local produce stand
Delight and Destruction – utopian dialectical Image
Electronic Artists United – electronic music and digital projection venue for regional artists
Silver Lining – parachute collects precipitation at central point, sprayed back up during dry times
The Grange at Green Lake – a temporary farmers and artists market
Muralist's Artists Park – watch while artists create their work
Car Henge – cars arranged as Stonehenge
Temporary Activation – art, garden, food, sport, picinic, play
Seattle Adventure Playground – places for kids to build, dig and build fires
Seattle Grotto – grow vegetables and fruits for food banks
Modern City Park Bench – modern art based on a city park bench
Temporary Tent City – encampment with sanitation and landscaping
Elsewhere Under the Monochrome – shipping crate converted to mini exhibition space
City Sonic Walks – cargo container as sound gallery
Groundplay – inflatable bouncy castle
American City Farms – moving greenhouses buying and selling vegetables
Seattle Living City – a micro community supported agriculture plus art
Bike Tree House – an elevated place to store bikes
Temporary Vending Structures vending structures and parking
Digital Projection on S. Lake Union Armory
Underworld – artists in fiber, dance, mechanical, video, lighting, production, graphics
Murals – artist who also designed murals being installed at vacant sites in Manhattan
Display Space – sculpture-as-shelter for art displays
Display Space – sculpture-as-yoga studio
Sacred Space – cognitive behavior therapy center
Temporary Yoga Space – incl. temporary walls and flooring
Sacred Space for Mindful Communication
Get-go – temporary art installation and event space
This Spot Forever – concrete installation over temporary flooring
Series of Parks Bring Nature Back Into City – native plants and natural processes
Bubble Space – bubbles as a shelter for shifting programs
Lakeside Park – Haller Lake townhome site
New Urban Jungle – noamdic green garden and art park
Anthae 360 –prefab homeless housing
Balance and Flow – round rooms for yoga, walking and sitting
Park and Ride –in West Seattle
Arts Crush –promote theater with a month of events
Guerilla Yoga –mobile yoga installation
Touch Express Yourself – space where people can draw with dry erase markers and touch screens
Exposed –five story staircase to look at city with glass elevator
Zero Energy Footprint –projects that will use zero energy
Transition, Growth and Transformation – garden, poetry
Community Gardens
Aurora Endcut Park – constructing art projects in different locations

 

We thank everyone who gave of their time and talents to come up with such great ideas!

For more information, please contact Valerie Kinast, Design Commission Coordinator, at 206-233-7911 or via e-mail at valerie.kinast@seattle.gov, or Bryan Stevens, DPD Public Information Officer, at (206) 684-5045, bryan.stevens@seattle.gov.

Download the Holding Patterns advertisement.

In the media:
Read the Seattle PI story on Holding Patterns ideas and watch the King5 video on Holding Patterns ideas.
Listen to the KUOW story on Holding Patterns and see the KING5 video on Holding Patterns.