SIGNAL

Architecture
In partnership with Watershed Community Development, our team is shaping a community-centered vision for Georgetown, Seattle, rooted in affordable placemaking and long-term resilience. Our team crafted a master plan, design guidelines, and an urban design approach that prioritizes everyday magic at the street level. Through strategic real estate development and a commitment to community ownership, the project will create space for small businesses, nonprofits, artists, and neighbors to grow together.

People
Over the next five years, Watershed will realize a five-building live/work district called The Bend. Designed to support affordable living, shared creative space, and social connection, The Bend is a platform for inclusive community-building. With 600 new homes—designed to remain affordable to low- and moderate-income residents—The Bend will house more than 1,500 people. This is housing that closes the gap between where people work and where they can afford to live.

Resilience for this neighborhood looks like closing the gap between employees and homes they can live in. Without a bold plan, the opportunity to develop housing in Georgetown will inevitably be seized by  market-rate housing –  excluding the people who need it most and created the vibrancy of the place.

Place
Georgetown sits in the Duwamish Valley, on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish People, who have lived here for generations. As the oldest neighborhood in Seattle, Georgetown is rich with layers—industrial, cultural, and communal. New spaces for workshops, small-scale manufacturers, and community-serving businesses are layered into the ground floors of new buildings. Pedestrian laneways weave through the site, creating active, human-scale connections and places to gather. At street level, the project will bring in essential services currently missing from the valley—like groceries, healthcare, childcare, and financial services—alongside cultural and nonprofit spaces that reflect and serve the Georgetown community.

Explore the District Plan for The Bend here, as well as a variety of other resources.