Copenhagen Masterclass: A Public Life Study Program Increasing Pedestrianization, Mobility, Public Safety, and Street Activation

Apr 15, 2024

Informing Prototype Creation in the Capitol Hill District of Seattle

Program Context

The Capitol Hill EcoDistrict was founded in 2011 to mitigate the rapid development in the Pacific Northwest’s most densely populated neighborhood. The impending arrival of a Light Rail Station would advance gentrification and displacement in a district known for its diversity, vibrant nightlife, green space, thriving art district, and eclectic small businesses. The ramifications of this rapid growth challenge livability, posing a consequential conflict for pedestrians, automobiles, cyclists, and small businesses. Meanwhile, the community faces issues with parking, multi-modal street usage, public space, public safety, and access to green space.

The Capitol Hill EcoDistrict has the distinction of serving as a test lab for innovative solutions, offering—through example—expertise in community engagement and development, research, and advocacy. Problem-solving and new projects that will make the Capitol Hill area more livable and sustainable are piloted at a neighborhood level to inform scaling throughout the city and region.

Funded by a grant from the Scan Design Foundation, the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict partnered with COurban to embark on a Masterclass program in Copenhagen and Malmo, traveling with a cohort of 14 intentionally selected participants. The program focused on creating a comprehensive framework that would result in the development and innovation of public life and space design improvements in Capitol Hill’s EcoDistrict. The overarching goals for the trip were to support the organization’s effort to become a global model for a diverse, inclusive, liberated, and environmentally sustainable neighborhood through championing pedestrianization, public safety, activated street spaces, art installations, and increased lighting.

Following these goals, the Masterclass objectives were to reduce the Capitol Hill community’s dependence on parking, promote a willingness to prioritize pedestrian safety and mobility, and increase activation and engagement through programming, art, and traffic calming. The program also helped build a coalition of community activists, environmentalists, legislative representatives, small business owners, residents, and community leaders to support this work.

Prior to departure to Copenhagen, regular meetings informed the travel and program agenda, which included local workshops, study tours, and events with cohort members. The Capitol EcoDistrict organized the program’s participants, emphasizing the inclusion of members who would activate the community on their return.

The 2023 Cohort

About the Masterclass

The COurban Study Tour and Masterclass programs bring together leaders from governmental and nonprofit organizations and stakeholders from around the world for an immersive week of fieldwork, tours, lectures, presentations, and workshops.

Participants study world-renowned public spaces, projects, and public life in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Malmö, Sweden, providing inspiration and strategies to bring back home. Recent COurban Masterclass and Study Tour cohorts include the City and Port of Bellingham Waterfront Regeneration and Urban Connectivity Masterclass, Spring 2018, Tacoma to Puyallup Bicycle Urbanism and Open Space Connections Masterclass, Summer 2018, the Northwest Indian College, Lummi Nation and the City and Port of Bellingham Community Resilience and Climate Protection Study Tour, Fall 2022. Building on the first COurban Capitol Hill EcoDistrict Urban Livability Masterclass Program in 2019, this recent Capitol Hill EcoDistrict cohort went on a study tour in the summer of 2023, bringing home inspiration and actionable strategies to the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict. Read the blog about the 2019 Masterclass here.

In Copenhagen and Malmö, the summer 2023 Capitol Hill EcoDistrict program centered on how Copenhagen became a global leader in studying and cultivating public life and pedestrianization, which has been systematically tracked and studied since the 1960s. The group toured the 60-year-old pedestrian walking network and learned about the pedestrianization of Strøget - the main pedestrian street that is approximately one mile long. The pedestrian-only streets highlight the potential for lively public spaces in Copenhagen and similar efforts worldwide.

While cycling and walking throughout Copenhagen and Malmö, the cohort met with academics, politicians, and urban designers who shared their expertise on evidence-based practices and institutional decision-making in the public realm. These lectures, workshops, and discussions encouraged the cohort to enhance their own community’s physical and mental health, diversity, economic vitality, and environmental sustainability.

In Copenhagen, the group experienced the city’s pop-up pilot projects aimed at transitioning parking lots to public squares, including street tree installations and event programming throughout the summer. In Malmö, the group was introduced to the city’s Summer Street Program, where inner-city streets transition to be car-free during the summer, and the pedestrian street program expands to help grow the more extensive pedestrian network. In lectures, the group learned how world-renowned pedestrian and bicycle networks, high-quality public spaces, and strategic partnerships are working to ensure seventy-five percent of Copenhagen's daily commuters commute by foot, bike, or public transport by 2025. Each day, COurban and the EcoDistrict helped refine the cohort’s program takeaways and how the lessons and strategy could be applied back home to the Capitol Hill neighborhood. A series of neighborhood pilot projects were brainstormed.

2023 Cohort Public Life Strategies MasterClass Takeaways

• Shift the Narrative and the Importance of Storytelling
• Set Goals with Data and the Importance of Backcasting
• Prioritize public spaces and values
• Create pilot projects that help introduce incremental change to permanent change
• Build a coalition, healthy leadership, and collaborative efforts between the municipalities, departments, and communities
• Be creative and activate small and large public spaces to bring together/integrate diverse user groups, biodiversity, arts and culture, and the climate and not cars
• Create supportive mobility systems showing the socio-economic benefit with a holistic view on the return on investments
• Enhance the municipalities’ role in the development of mobility systems, public spaces, and the public realm
• Know the specific neighborhoods, people, and places you are working with and build trust and relationships within those places

Upon return, after the summer travel portion of the program, the cohort gathered for a series of workshops and meetings organized around applying the shared takeaways and developing a public life pilot project strategy for the neighborhood. A Community Report Back event was co-hosted by COurban and the EcoDistrict in early 2024, inviting the public to meet the cohort, learn about the Masterclass program, neighborhood public life, and space efforts, and give feedback on the featured pilot projects.

Capitol Hill Public Life Pilot Projects

REVIVAL Street Market

The Capitol Hill EcoDistrict produces REVIVAL Street Market vendor pop-ups, which will continue throughout 2024. REVIVAL Street Markets are a fresh approach to outdoor markets that aims to repair some of the harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the endemic inequities it brought to light. It's a chance to support small businesses while reclaiming small sections of blighted city streets and revive our community in a productive and inclusive way. Community partners for this project include OPCD, OED, Midtown Square, KEXP, and Arte Noir.

REVIVAL Corridor

The Capitol Hill EcoDistrict is creating a REVIVAL Corridor prototype. This enhanced pathway, which will include art installations, an increased green canopy, increased lighting, and public safety, will encourage choosing walking and cycling over automobiles. Engaging with small businesses that line the pathway will positively impact their success. City partners include OPCD and SDOT, who have encouraged the EcoDistrict to have this Corridor be codified into the Land Use Code and be considered for the Seattle Transit Plan Levy.

Nagle Place Street Activation

The Capitol Hill EcoDistrict has an activation plan for Nagle Place, a park adjacent street in Seattle prone to encampments, drug trafficking and vandalism. Increasing the lighting, adding a tree canopy and using art and activity to promote traffic calming will encourage pedestrian and cycle usage to become more frequent. Working with the community to install the trees and art should create a community of stewards to preserve the project’s integrity and livelihood. Community partners include Seattle Central College, OED, OPCD, OSE and Seattle Birds Connect (formerly Seattle Audubon).

Harvard Garage Outdoor Community Center

The Capitol Hill EcoDistrict is creating a prototype for outdoor community centers created by enhancing parking garages. Inspired by similar projects in Denmark and Sweden, the Harvard Street garage, which currently attracts vandalism and derelict behavior, would be transformed into a rooftop community center, wrapped in art and green, topped with an outdoor area encouraging outdoor play, rest areas, community gardens, and pop-up kiosks. Increased foot traffic and activity offer a solution to a greater sense of public safety without surveillance. Community Partners include Seattle Central College and OPCD.

Leveraging the Cohort and Community Engagement

Since returning from Copenhagen, the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict has been meeting regularly with the City of Seattle departments to advance the projects in Capitol Hill, which will serve as prototypes for other neighborhoods and scaling. The team has been invited to work with contracted consultants currently designing Seattle’s Subarea neighborhood planning, assist with Friends of the Waterfront Summer retail markets, and continues to progress with the REVIVAL Street Revolution plans.

COurban Masterclass Program Background:

Scan Design Foundation has partnered with Katy Scherrer and the team at COurban since 2016 to develop custom Masterclass programs for delegations of Pacific Northwest professionals to engage in hands-on learning experiences in Copenhagen, Denmark.

COurban works with each delegation to co-create new tools that illuminate the experience of urban space and expand participants’ understanding of their own projects. The COurban Masterclasses enable participants to actively facilitate change by learning concrete and tested tools for planning, designing, and building a livable city.