with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and City of Seattle
Role : Director; managing full research and design portfolio and project team
Project Partners : Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Amazon, Vulcan Real Estate, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods
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With over 230 people moving to Seattle each day, Belltown and Denny Triangle, two downtown core neighborhoods, are growing at an unprecedented rate. This growth spurred a desire among community groups and business leaders to align on a long-term vision of future development and investment for these abutting neighborhoods. Our challenge was to bring together multiple stakeholders to initiate discussion, identify opportunities of mutual interest and create a framework for future implementation.
Three public workshops expanded the discussion, resulting in a recommendations report that lays the groundwork for funding and implementation.
Workshop 1: The Walkshop
A stakeholder neighborhood "walkshop" where participants mapped existing challenges and potential opportunities with a collaborative brainstorm session for initial concept development
Workshop 2: Synthesis & Co-Creation
A hands-on working session that included: a share out of insights from the stakeholder walk, an activity to create themes based on findings, iterations for concept models and strategies for implementation.
Workshop 3: Validating Insights & Concept Iteration
An in-field public workshop where the team presented research findings, iterated on implementation strategies with stakeholders and hosted a celebration of next steps.
Research insights from the three workshops were compiled and presented to the primary stakeholder team. This insight resulted in a two-year action plan and activation strategy for neighborhood organizations to jointly carry forward and manage.
Presently, the two organizations are building funding and partnerships for concept implementation. They have also started the legal process of creating a non-profit to manage efforts moving forward.