The Seattle Design Festival explores ways that design serves the community it impacts, and how design can allow future generations and ecosystems to thrive. As part of SDF’s commitment to sustainability, each year we encourage all of our partners to plan for their installation’s afterlife. We ask them to partner with a local organization for future display or create a plan to properly reuse the material elements of your installation. We are excited to report that several of our EMERGE installations lived on after the Festival! Here are just a few of the installations that continued beyond the Block Party:
Kaleidospace @ Optimism Brewing
Kaleidospace was a collab between @callisonrtkl and @bayley_construction. “Throughout the pandemic, many embarked on a journey defined by change and uncertainty. The installation is a physical metaphor of that very same journey—transporting guests through the safe spaces created for solace, as well as the path of transformation they embarked on as things began to reopen.” Kaleidospace will be on display through the end of October, so be sure to walk through it on your next visit. Pictures don’t do it enough justice!
Vacant Seattle + Hello World! @ Jacob Lawrence Gallery
Vacant Seattle, a participatory installation by Studio Matthews (@studiomatthews) presented at Seattle Design Festival 2021, invited participants to collectively re-imagine the city of Seattle. Hundreds of community responses were collected at the festival, mapped across a panoramic map of Seattle. Studio Matthews is the design studio led by Kristine Matthews, Associate Professor of Visual Communication Design.
Hello, World! (@helloworld.sdf) by UW design students Isabella Ceriale, Isabella Gaule, Sophia Johnson, Peyton Todd, and Charmaine Yabut, invited viewers to reflect on the pandemic through writing and creative expression. Presented at Seattle Design Festival 2021, the installation was a space for the community to reconnect to themselves and each other.
Homebase @ Camp United We Stand
Homebase, from Olson Kundig (@olsonkundig), is a lightweight modular shelter made from commodity materials. The prototype, built in partnership with Dowbuilt (@dowbuilt), ARUP (@arupamericas), and Camp United We Stand, was first assembled for the Seattle Design Festival . The following week it was rebuilt at Camp United We Stand, a self-managed, safe, community-supported encampment in North Seattle. This installation now houses its new residents, Holly and Andrew.
BloomHouse @ Capitol Hill Art Walk
Acrylize’s (@acrylicize) BloomHouse provided a prompt and gave the community a voice to reflect on our collective experiences during the past year. Throughout the weekend the installation transformed through creative expression representative of the lasting and impactful memories, knowledge, and transformations that emerged across the past 18 months. Almost every inch was filled with paint; a visual recognition of our community experience. This work was reinstalled at the art walk in Capitol Hill on Thursday, September 9th.
Mithun Pop-Up Zone @ Sawhorse Revolution
These tables were designed by Mithun (@mithun_design) in collaboration with the local non-profit Sawhorse Revolution (@sawhorse.revolution) for our Pop-Up Zone. Attendees were invited to use this lounge to sit and engage with each other, and to consider these voices and the many others that are often left out of conversations around the design of our built environment. After the Festival, the tables will be used by students at Sawhorse Revolution as they learn to tackle social injustice and better their communities with carpentry and design skills.