Website: https://artist.callforentry.org/festivals_unique_info.php?ID=6810
(206) 684-7309
Seattle, WA, Unknown
The Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects, in partnership with the Office of Arts & Culture and Seattle Department of Transportation, seeks an artist/artist team to join a collaborative design team to unify the Pike-Pine corridor, which is a major east-west connection to Seattle’s central waterfront.
Budget: $50,000 for design and $250,000 for fabrication and installation
Eligibility: Professional artists working in the United States
Deadline: January 22, 2020
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The City of Seattle is rebuilding Seattle’s central waterfront. With the removal of the Alaskan Way Viaduct complete, the City will create a park promenade along the water, construct a new surface street along Alaskan Way, rebuild Pier 58 and Pier 62, build an elevated connection from Pike Place Market to the waterfront, and improve east-west connections between downtown and Elliott Bay. This effort, called Waterfront Seattle, is a $724M, multi-year investment between now and 2023. It is led by the City of Seattle’s Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects.
Prior to embarking on a concept design, Waterfront Seattle outlined a series of guiding principles for the project. Among these guiding concepts of Waterfront Seattle is the commitment to create “A Waterfront for All” and to reconnect the city to its waterfront. The waterfront will strive to engage the entire city, with uses and activities that will attract people from all walks of life. In order to facilitate access to the waterfront, the city will by build a network of green connections and public spaces that connect visually and physically to the water, improving key streets between Pioneer Square to the south and Belltown to the north. Pike and Pine Streets are among two of the streets that will undergo improvements.
A Concept Design and Framework Plan were completed by the design team, led by James Corner of Field Operations, as part of Waterfront Seattle, a cohesive program for re-envisioning the waterfront and its connections to downtown and beyond. The plan includes a diverse range of new public spaces and several new pedestrian connections to the waterfront. Between the street and the water’s edge, a broad promenade will run along the waterfront, and existing piers will be re-constructed as new public open spaces. Waterfront Seattle thus seeks to re-center the city on its bay. The city and state are working collaboratively across agencies and projects to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape Seattle’s waterfront.
As part of the Waterfront Seattle framework plan, the design team, including an artist and arts consultants, completed an art plan entitled A Working Plan for Art on the Central Seattle Waterfront. The art plan identifies the waterfront as the intersection of three forces: ecology, economy, and community, which have reshaped its function and physical character over long periods of time. Seeing the waterfront as a working waterfront through most of its inhabited history, the art plan proposes arts and culture as active presences on a new working waterfront. Alongside permanent commissioned artworks, the plan calls for events, residencies, cultural and educational institutions, and working artists on the waterfront. The Seattle Arts Commission reviewed and endorsed the art plan, and it guides the development of art projects for the waterfront. Seven artists have been commissioned to create permanently sited or long-term temporary artworks for the waterfront.
PIKE STREET AND PINE STREET
Among the various projects that make up the Waterfront Program, the Pike Pine Renaissance Streetscape and Bicycle Improvements Project is one of several that connect the waterfront to the city fabric.
Pike and Pine are the two most important east-west streets in the central part of Downtown, connecting the density and energy of Capitol Hill to the retail core, to the heart of the City at Pike Place Market, and ultimately to the new waterfront. Much of the route passes by major retailers and the Washington State Convention Center and then continues over I-5 up to Capitol Hill, Seattle’s densest residential neighborhood.
A goal of the project is to provide a graceful, interesting, and safe journey for pedestrians along the full length of that route, and a clear indication of how to reach the waterfront. A desired component of that journey is a continuous character and quality, and legibility. Ideally a person would know they are on Pike or Pine compared to other streets (and at the same time, will be able to distinguish Pike from Pine).
The Pike Pine Renaissance Streetscape and Bicycle Improvements Project will improve Pike and Pine Streets between First Avenue and Melrose/Bellevue Avenues. This effort merges the Office of the Waterfront’s streetscape project with Seattle Department of Transportation’s Protected Bike Lane Project and will make improvements for people who walk and people who bicycle on these streets. This project builds on Downtown Seattle Associations’ 2013 Pike Pine Renaissance Design Vision, that reimagined these two streets and adjacent areas. The current project will achieve a key Waterfront Seattle objective to improve east-west connections between the waterfront and surrounding neighborhoods. It also builds on Protected Bicycle Lanes already implemented on Pike and Pine Streets as part of the City Center Bike Network. The City of Seattle will construct improvements as part of Waterfront Seattle construction.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
ARTIST SCOPE OF WORK
The selected artist or artist team (of no more than two lead members) will collaborate with the Pike Pine Renaissance Streetscape and Bicycle Improvements Project design team, including ZGF Architects, LLP, project stakeholders, and community members to design integrated streetscape elements and/or original artwork or series of artworks on Pike and Pine Streets. The artist(s) will help design elements that may be well-integrated into the site, helping to unify the streetscape, and may also be asked to consider gateway elements (if feasible) or other identifiers for the corridor. These latter artworks should be very legible as autonomous artistic interventions at key intersections.
PROJECT GOALS
TIMELINE
SELECTION PROCESS
The selection will take place in two parts. During the first round of the selection process a panel of arts professionals, client representatives, and community members will review the applicants’ work samples, qualifications, and other materials. The panelists will identify up to four finalists to interview at a second panel meeting two to four weeks later. The panel will select one artist or artist team to be awarded the commission. The city reserves the right not to select any artists for this commission.
SELECTION CRITERIA
The Office of Arts & Culture is committed to reflecting the diversity and cultural richness of our city in the selection of artists and artworks.
NOTIFICATION OF RESULTS
Applicants will be notified of the panel’s decision by the end of April 2020. The Office of Arts & Culture reserves the right not to select any applicants.
WHAT TO SUBMIT
HOW TO SUBMIT
Submit ONLINE ONLY via the CaFE system. For assistance with the CaFÉ online application process, please contact CaFÉ tech support at 888.562.7232 or cafe@westaf.org, Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (Pacific Time).
QUESTIONS? Contact Ruri Yampolsky: ruri.yampolsky@seattle.gov; 206.684.7309.