Decades of intense industrialization, redlining, and policy neglect have left Seattle’s South Park polluted and disadvantaged. The EPA has classified the stretch of the Duwamish River that separates the low-lying coastal community from the Boeing airfield as a Superfund Site. Now, a century after the channelization that extirpated some 97% of the river’s habitat, Boeing is staging to gradually withdraw, leaving the shores of the Duwamish River and nearby communities with the mess for which the aerospace manufacturer bears enormous proportional responsibility. Disentangling harm from home, we pit birds, as indicators for social and ecosystemic wellbeing, against Boeing, the industrial and economic goliath that buoyed the community since before its establishment. By designing for the betterment of all species, we imagined speculative futures that countervail industrial imposition by redeploying derelict industrial land towards the resuscitation of local ecologies. In doing so, this project releases the Duwamish River from its colonial constraints and provides South Park, along with the rest of Seattle, room to breathe.
Resuscitating the Duwamish River
Alex Williams, Tyler Adam, & Chloe Naese | LARC 505 with MITHUN