Bellingham's New Waterfront Proposals for a Model Climate District

Climate change is presenting as one of the greatest challenges of our time, with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently issuing a series of deeply researched warnings that the globe is currently on a pathway to experience disastrous climate change impacts. While adaptation to the many ill-effects of climate change will be necessary, it is also predicted that action can and must be taken to mitigate the severity of these impacts, through reduced greenhouse gas emissions, capture of atmospheric carbon, and changes in built environment practices and the conservation behaviors that well-designed environments can inspire. Within this context, we aspire to render our towns and cities those that encourage delightful, just and nourishing living for people, and are supportive of healthy environments that all organisms depend upon.

Bellingham’s former Georgia-Pacific industrial waterfront site presents an unparalleled opportunity to explore how cities can become part of the solution to the climate crisis. By designating this waterfront area a “Climate District,” students in the 2021 Scan Design Interdisciplinary Studio were able to maintain focus on solutions for both accelerating climate protection (mitigation) as well as for adapting to projected impacts by planning for inevitable, though variable, future conditions. In conjunction with these challenges, the site is exceedingly complex, with legacy pollution and cultural amnesia, and rich opportunities for direct connections to the city’s downtown and a linked system of recreational and ecological open spaces. Our talented students have done an exemplary job of embracing these complexities to consider what might be possible on this site, to address its many problems and potentials. The three interdisciplinary teams have based their proposals on deep research – as much as the university term allows – to propose and explore solutions that consider existing conditions, community needs, interaction of systems, and temporal processes. They have incorporated “circular system” thinking: How can the district work as a system within itself, and within its immediate contexts of city, county and region, for both local economic and global climate benefit?

We hope that the thoughtful, illustrated proposals of the three student teams may help to advance the thinking of Bellingham’s citizens, Port and City government, and may inspire the imagination for how we may urgently plan, build and happily live to better protect our fragile climate and all whom it so dramatically affects. This work could not have had the depth or relevance without the assistance of so many people, and so we have many to thank: the Scan Design Foundation for so generously funding our study tour to Denmark and Sweden, our Master Teacher Louise Grassov and our teaching assistant Sarah Lukins; the Port of Bellingham, especially Brian Gouran, Adrienne Hegedus, Mike Hogan and Kurt Baumgarten; the City of Bellingham, especially Nicole Oliver, Tara Sundin, and Steven Sundin; Mauri Ingram of Whatcom Community Foundation, Alice Clark from Downtown Bellingham, Architect Neil McCarthy, Engineer Mark Buerher, scholar Jewell James, boat captains Jim and Kathy Kyle, and the many professional and academic participants who reviewed the students’ work during the term. Special thanks go to Katy Scherrer of CoUrban and Kristi Park of Bio Design Studio who were so instrumental in making the connections and guiding our way through, and to hotelier Peter Frazier for hosting our group’s visit and seeing the potential of visionary thinking. We thank you all!

– Nancy Rottle,
Professor University of Washington, College of Built Environments