Seattle Design Festival 2019

My first week as a trainee in JW Architects, I had the pleasure to attend to the Seattle Design Festival Opening party which was hosted by my office. Every year, the Seattle Design Festival brings together designers, architects and artists to explore how design affect the quality of our lives and community.

JW Architects hosts a lot of events related with the arts and architecture taking advantage of their new office in the International District. King Street was designed by the firm a couple years ago following a sustainable and high performance design. The building was awarded with the Zero Energy Building Certification for the International Living Future Institute after a year of zero net energy, which means that they do not consume more energy that the one generated by solar panels on the roof. It has a main lobby where nowadays there is an art installation of Mya Kerner, a local artist. Her main installation hangs from the high ceiling as a mountain shape wire sculpture or how she calls it, the memory of a mountain.

The Seattle Design Festival features citywide tours, exhibits, outdoor installations, activities, interactive workshops and more. The theme of this year was Balance, and some of the questions they made us to think about were:        + What is the role of design to mitigate our impact on the planet and achieve greater natural balance?

+ How can design thinking foster a society that balances the needs of all of its people and the planet?

+ Can design help us achieve personal balance and live our best lives?

I went to the South Lake Union Block Party where there was an exhibition of large-scale art installations made for different local architecture firms. It was a great opportunity to experience how the different firms or collectives approached the theme from different perspectives. I was very impressed with the installation because I expected something more artistic and less thoughtful. There were some pieces very sculptural but most of them were very interactive. They made you think about how the design affect in your lifestyle and how important is that impact in the society and the carbon footprint. Seattle is a city aware of the climate change and is working on a greener future. That was totally reflected in the installations as well as the new urban development that the city is suffering right now.