Flower Stadiums
Seattle, WA, 2004
Flower Stadiums is a conceptual landscape proposal for Cowen Park in Seattle, a large meadow bordered by mature forest. The meadow occupies the historic course of Ravenna Creek, which once flowed from Green Lake through Cowen and Ravenna Parks before emptying into Portage Bay. The proposal explores the reclamation of this buried creek while revealing the dynamic relationship between ecological succession, time, and human intervention.
The design restores Ravenna Creek through two linear interventions carved into the meadow. Each consists of canted steel walls rising above a trench that daylights the creek, recalling the form of stadium seating while framing the restored watercourse. Initially, the walls are planted with a monoculture of red azaleas, creating a vivid flowering display that provides nectar habitat for the Rufous Hummingbird.
The installation is intentionally designed to evolve. As maintenance is reduced, ecological succession gradually transforms the intervention. Pioneer species—including Himalayan blackberry, red alder, and Douglas fir—colonize the steel structures. As vegetation matures and biomass accumulates, its increasing weight slowly overcomes the pressure-loaded hinges, allowing the walls to pivot downward and settle into water-filled recesses below. Over time, the engineered intervention gradually gives way to a landscape reclaimed by natural processes.
Habitat creation extends beyond the restored creek. Bat boxes installed beneath pedestrian bridges provide roosting opportunities for Brown Bats, reinforcing the proposal's ecological objectives while encouraging visitors to observe the relationships between habitat, infrastructure, and landscape change.
Flower Stadiums proposes that landscape architecture can function not as a fixed composition, but as a living framework that embraces change. Rather than resisting ecological succession, the design choreographs it, allowing natural processes to become both the agent of transformation and the primary experience of the landscape.
