Event Details
Event Name: An Evening with Peter Ker Walker – Co-Author of Discovery Park’s Master Plan
Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Time: 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Location: University of Washington Architecture Hall 147
About the Event
In 2017, Seattle Parks and Recreation and the Discovery Park Trust hosted An Evening with Peter Ker Walker, landscape architect and co-author of the Discovery Park Master Plan, for a special discussion about the park’s history, guiding vision, and future.
Bringing together park planners, historians, environmental leaders, and community advocates, the event explored why Discovery Park remains one of Seattle’s most important public spaces and how thoughtful stewardship can preserve its natural character for generations to come.
Our region’s largest naturalistic public park, Discovery Park, affords the indispensable ingredients for a healthy human and wildlife flourishing humane wilderness environment within an urban city. Equanimity, health, and introspection all thrive here. Please join Peter Ker Walker and a select invitation of panelists as they discuss Seattle’s largest public park. Topics will include the formative years and guiding vision, current state of the park and its role in Seattle’s parks system. We will learn about Discovery’s rich history, how we choose to value open space land simply for what it is, and we will look towards the future as we work together to create a world-class park for the 21st century.
John Muir argued that everyone is born with an inner bond to nature. Though still to be proven scientifically, it has been suggested, in an echo to John Muir, that everyone has an inborn “biophilia” or love of nature and natural things.
That certainty and truth is within each of us when we visit Discovery Park.
“Discovery Park, with its magnificent vistas, the stretches of tidal beaches, the stands of native trees, the meadowlands – all combine to make this site, its potential is bounded only by the vision and resolution of those into whose hands it is entrusted.“
– Discovery Park Master Plan, 1972
Featured Speakers and Panelists
- Peter Ker Walker, Landscape Architect and co-author of the Discovery Park Master Plan.
- Christopher Williams, Deputy Superintendent, Seattle Parks and Recreation.
- Thaisa Way, UW Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, College of Built Environments, urban landscape historian, theory, and design.
- Jourdan Keith, Founder and Director of Urban Wilderness Project, Poet, Storyteller and teaching artist.
- Peter Kahn, UW Professor, Department of Psychology and the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, nature, technology, and human development.
- Randy Lewis, United Indians of All Tribes, Board Member and Founder, Daybreak Star Cultural Center.
- Shelton Johnson, (via video), US National Park Service, Yosemite National Park Ranger, Author, and Poet.
- Warren Etheredge, Host for the evening, Founder of the Warren Report, cultural conversationalist, interviewer, film analyst, writer, and mentor to screenwriters.
Watch the Symposium
If you missed the event or would like to revisit the conversations you can watch video recordings and learn more in our companion post: Discovery Park Symposium at the University of Washington: An Evening with Peter Ker Walker
Stay Connected
Want to learn more about Discovery Park’s history, restoration work, wildlife, and upcoming events? Sign up for the Friends of Discovery Park newsletter to receive updates, volunteer opportunities, and the latest news from Seattle’s largest public park.