How do you insert hundreds of housing units into an industrial landscape, infuse them with art, and create a high-performing ecologically-muscular landscape? That challenge was at the heart of MxM’s work developing a Street Concept Plan for the west Georgetown community.

Through extensive neighborhood outreach, our team was able to develop a streetscape plan that honors the area’s industrial fabric while carving away human-scaled, yet industrial-textured spaces for people. Corners become conversation nooks with rail paving, planting strips become dense, floodable micro-forests in a callback to the braided Duwamish River, and a thousand pieces of art create a textural richness that infuses the streets with a humane stickiness seldom seen in industrial ares.

The plan even proposes to remove, or significantly reduce, traffic on several low-volume streets creating people spaces in an area of the City that has few park amenities. These zones mix art, bioretention cells, and community-oriented uses (like restaurant incubators and daycare) to activate these zones for people.