Privatized Public Spaces in Seattle: Incorporating Well-designed Water Features as a Focal Point for Engagement Opportunities

Abstract

While public parks have distinct spaces carved throughout the landscape of dense cities like Seattle, the creation of smaller, more everyday public spaces—such as walkways in shopping areas or courtyards in mixed-use developments—are being created by private development projects. In the city of Seattle, the design and aesthetics of these spaces are not only influenced by the goals of the private developer but also the underlying zoning code and the neighborhood design guidelines. Therefore, an opportunity for input on the design and aesthetics of these spaces is available through the Design Review process in the City of Seattle. With the creation of privately-managed or privately-owned public spaces on the rise, I chose to study three privately-owned public spaces with water features in Northeast Seattle: University Village, Green Lake Village, and Thornton Place. After qualitative observation sessions that included note-taking and picture-taking, I used an adapted rubric from a 2011 Master of Landscape Architecture thesis to analyze the three sites’ ability to create spaces that encouraged interaction with the water feature. I found that University Village had the most engaging site due to its combination of consistent pedestrian activity, mature human-scale landscaping, the water feature’s unique design, different levels of opportunities for engagement, and a plethora of seating in the vicinity. Being able to interact with water in the urban landscape has important psychological benefits. Designing water features more intentionally can allow these pockets of privatized public space to foster more genuine interactions among its users, thereby enhancing the overall quality of life in the city. This thesis offers four policy recommendations which can be implemented into future versions of design guidelines in Seattle or other municipalities. The four recommendations I suggest below can create more successful privatized public spaces through the purposeful inclusion of well-designed water features. • Incorporate Public Art into the Design of Water Features • Create Water Features with Components of Still Water and Moving Water • Use Pathways and Human-Scale Elements to Encourage Engagement • Add Low-Cost Technology to Activate Water Feature