The Daily UW | Red Square: re-imagining an iconic UW landmark
- 4 mins
Courtesy of Roxanne Glick
Published on dailyuw.com, 2019 (link)
The great expanse of red brick that makes up Red Square is one of the first sights that greet UW visitors walking up from the southwest end of campus. This year, the UW College of Built Environments challenged students to re-design Red Square as a part of a new design competition hosted by the school throughout the school year. The landscape architecture department is working with the art department, the Office of the Provost, and the Office of Capital Planning and Development to fund and host this event. A $5,000 scholarship will be awarded to the team with the winning design.
The first round of the contest took place during autumn quarter, when students studying landscape architecture collected information about Red Square through surveys as part of a representation course. The second round consisted of a weekend-long design charrette; a condensed session of planning and re-design of Red Square followed by a review session.
The final round is a nine-week long design competition in which teams of UW students document their creative approaches and generate a proposal of how they would re-imagine Red Square.
Julie Parrett, a lecturer in the UW department of landscape architecture, is one of the main coordinators of the event.
“The goal had been to select teams that were multidisciplinary and were vertically integrated, meaning both undergraduate and graduate students,” Parrett said about the diversity in academic fields of the participants. “It’s a great way to bring people from different colleges and different departments to work together, especially at the graduate level.”
Eleven teams applied for the nine-week competition, and six were selected to participate. Participants include students from not only the College of Built Environments, but also from the School of Art + Art History + Design, College of Engineering, and more.
The participants from the College of Built Environments appreciate the new perspectives that students from other disciplines bring in. Among them is Sarah K. Wallace, a student participating in the competition.
“As a dual degree student, it’s been a great way to bring people I know from the urban planning department as well as students from the landscape architecture department into the same room to create something we’re proud of,” Wallace said. “Having different disciplines in the room provides different points of view that have helped drive our design and think of the opportunities and constraints of our design proposal.”
“We have students from the planning department and information sciences on our team,” Roxanne Glick, another graduate student studying landscape architecture, said. “It’s really fun getting to know them better and seeing all of our skills shine through as individuals. We’ve gained some skills in the landscape architecture program but everyone has great contributions.”
The third round of the competition is currently underway, and each team is taking a unique approach toward their vision of a new Red Square.
After looking at the history of Red Square, Wallace and her team have decided to represent the voices of Red Square, the UW, and surrounding U-district.
“We’re thinking of different ways to make Red Square red and showcasing the history of voice in Red Square as well as thinking about future transportation and pedestrian connections,” Wallace said.
Glick’s group, on the other hand, is having fun with the idea of starting a design with a completely clean slate. They were inspired by the idea of biofluorescent organisms, and are looking into using bioluminescent mushrooms as an unconventional option in place of regular plant selection.
Parrett said there is a lot more to the competition than to simply have students re-design a space.
“It’s really thinking about how to improve student experience,” she said. “The idea [is] being able to look at something that’s existing and used on a daily basis and to re-envision how it might work better [both] as a space … [and] in terms of a way of welcoming people into the university. We started it with a very clear understanding that it was not about picking a winning design that would then get built, but it’s more about inspiring a conversation around how we might change and reimagine the square.”
Submissions for the final round are due in April, and awards will be announced in early May. While there are not currently plans to host another competition of this size next year, the College of Built Environments will continue to host weekend design charrettes and promote smaller-scale design events.
Amber Hsu
Senior studying English and Biochemistry at the UW