Temporary use of space in urbanism can be roughly described as the reallocation of unused or underutilized space, which can act as a catalyst to enliven and rehabilitate cities and neighborhoods. Once a bottom-up, do-it-yourself strategy for the creative reappropriation of urban space, temporary use projects are increasingly integrated into many modern top-down urban planning and design initiatives.

This capstone project has developed into its final form from initial research conducted on my study abroad program in Berlin, a city ripe with a vast history of temporary space, creative-use projects. Berlin has the policy backing, real estate availability, and, perhaps most importantly, the culture that supports and encourages interim use projects --But would replication of such a project in my home city of Seattle yield the same results?

Using research on temporary use spaces, event production, and global case-study comparisons, I created my own temporary use project: a one-day ArtWalk event in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood that temporarily activates a place and provides a stage for some of the community’s cultural assets.  The results of my work are summarized in a written report that describes my research findings, production methodology, and the results of a comparative analysis of the policy, real estate, and cultural differences between Berlin and Seattle that made for a more obstructed event process in our local context.