The story of South park, Seattle from the glacial retreat as told by the Duwamish people, to the straightening of the river, to the present day community’s resilience, is woven together from the lives of salmon and people. Embedded in this interspecies story is the memory of water and the shapes it takes in the landscape. This project aims to provide the South Park community with opportunities to relink the stories of salmon and people through new expressions of local fluvio-cultural geomorphologies. Fluvio-cultural geomorphology refers to the intersections of human life and movement with water’s life and movement. This is embedded in the forms water has taken in South Park historically: Tributary, Meander, and Wetland. Interventions at various scales over time employ these forms to address social and environmental injustice while leveraging the strong existing community in South Park, mutually enriching salmon and human habitat. Beginning with pilot projects in the form of green-blue infrastructure and moving towards larger interventions such as the daylighting of Hamm Creek along highway 99, the project culminates in the phased construction of a wetland in the industrial area to the north. After relocation of industry to adjacent public land, the streets and contaminated soils are mined and sequestered, providing a landscape of channels and depressions that allow the historic floodplain of the Duwamish River to re-establish itself within and over the street grid.
The Memory of Water
Ashley Fleck, Caleb Spyksma, Livia Newman, & Zahra Hirji | LARC 504 with MITHUN