Longfellow Creek Restoration
A blighted urban creek rambling through an uneven West Seattle neighborhood provides the setting for a Seattle Public Utilities, Urban Renewal Project timed to coincide with the millennium. Longfellow Creek, which despite its neglect and despoliation, still harbors remnants of life. Interspersed amongst the broken bottles, old tires and other trash one can still find fish inhabiting its nooks and crannies.
This Project as part of a larger effort to restore the creek and it’s immediate watershed is intended to provide an interpretive trail which follows the creek as it winds its way through the neighborhood. Along the trail, at strategic points that allow connection to public transportation and access, are dispersed a series of information kiosks, plazas, pergolas and obelisks. These elements or “urban furnishings” allow the public greater access to, knowledge about and appreciation for the creek and its environment.
A common thread of materials, details and forms tie the various elements together. These include bush hammered concrete bases, with a welded steel skeleton supporting pre-cast concrete panels or colored Finnish plywood. Each of these applied skins stop short of meeting corners to reveal the galvanized steel frames. Attached benches and trellis members are also rendered in galvanized steel. Fragments from the clean-up of the creek are to be salvaged and recycled into the concrete mixture for both the pre-cast panels and flatwork thereby recalling and reminding its users of the creeks more immediate history.
A common thread of materials, details and forms tie the various elements together. These include bush hammered concrete bases, with a welded steel skeleton supporting pre-cast concrete panels or colored Finnish plywood. Each of these applied skins stop short of meeting corners to reveal the galvanized steel frames. Attached benches and trellis members are also rendered in galvanized steel. Fragments from the clean-up of the creek are to be salvaged and recycled into the concrete mixture for both the pre-cast panels and flatwork thereby recalling and reminding its users of the creeks more immediate history.
Design was completed in 2000.
