Treatment to the Chaos

Treatment to the chaos in Downtown Seattle

Project: Freeway Park

Location: Boundary North by Union and on the south by Spring Street. East to First Hill, west to the Seattle's financial center.

Observation time: 01/ 18, 2013, Friday, 10:00-12:00am

Participants: Dian (Nikky) Zhang, Xiaoyang Zhu, Yuan (Evan) Lin.

Observation:
1. Context: The park locates in the center of downtown Seattle. The !-5 Freeway and The 8th Ave go through the park. There is a large city-owned parking lot underneath the park. And the boundary is defined by Washington State Convention and Trade Center.
2. Activities: There are 2 main open spaces and many pedestrian made of concrete. in this park. the activities include waling, jogging, gathering, passing through and getting into the building.
3. Plants: In order to reduce the pollution from the freeway, the designer selected some native evergreen shrubs and trees which have a high ability to resist the toxic dirt and noise. There are some other colorful plants to indicate seasonal change.
4. Texture: The artificial part in this park is purely grey concrete, with some obvious red movable chair. Some of the plants would turn yellow and hard, which makes a big contrast between hard and soft. Aesthetically, the interact of each material is well presented.
5. Plans create the space: Most of the plants grow high and dense to enclose the road and define the boundary, while there are also some individual trees with beautiful appearance standing on a wide and flat grass field.

Conclusion:
Freeway Park is a wise design treating the complex context around. The freeway and other streets through the park can also be regarded as a mimic aspect of nature. The project blurs the boundary of what is natural process and what is urban.