This year’s Seattle Design Festival runs August 16-25 and celebrates balance. Through a series of events, workshops, and parties, SDF explores the role of design in mitigating our impact on the planet and in achieving personal balance in our lives. Here’s what you can’t miss:
Opening Party
Date: August 16th
Time: 8pm-11pm
Location: Chinatown-International District
JW Architects kicks everything off in the International District with an Opening Party open to everyone and features food by Golas Kitchen and 2 DJs to get the party going.
Neighborhood Design Crawls
Neighbourhood Design Crawls are two days of concentrated events, open studios, exhibits, interactive workshops or participatory design interventions that are meant to activate and celebrate the neighborhood.
- Capitol Hill Crawl will be held on August 17th, 10am-9pm, and includes a tour, a film screening, several panel discussions, a charrette, a books signing and an exhibit. Visit Schemata Workshop’s space which will serve as a hub and scavenger hunt stop for the event. See their current work related to affordable housing, co-housing, and urban planning in Seattle while enjoying light refreshments and snacks.
- The Georgetown Design Crawl on August 22nd runs 3pm-8pm
and will feature open-studios – Equinox Studios and Ten Penny Studio with participatory installations and activities designed to engage visitors in the act of design. Be sure to check out a set by DJ Natural Selection at the Equinox Studio hub.
Technology Design Discussion
Date: August 19th
Time: 6pm-8pm
Location: 51 University Street #6001
Presented by Microsoft, the discussion topic for the evening is Living in Harmony with the Things We Create. In this panel discussion, Microsoft will share their philosophy for their new campus as well as their thinking on achieving balance between virtual and physical spaces ensuring human needs are always primary.
Thriving Cities Design Discussion
Date: August 23rd
Time: 6pm-8pm
Location: 51 University Street #600
The integrated architecture, design, planning and consulting firm, Gensler, in collaboration with AIA Seattle Design & Wellbeing Committee present a design discussion entitled Turning Barriers into Thresholds: Eliminating Imbalance and Inequality in Seattle at the DLR Group offices. This will be an interactive discussion on imbalance and inequity throughout the City of Seattle examined through various lenses including physical, environmental, socio-economic, and technological viewpoints. A Q&A will follow to brainstorm ideas for better balance and equity.
Discover + Disrupt Exhibit Tour
Date: Until August 31st
Time: As per Center for Architecture & Design’s hours
Location: 1010 Western Avenue
Join Seattle-based artist collaboration Electric Coffin to explore their bodies of work which examine the intersection of art and commerce. At the Center for Architecture and Design, Discover + Disrupt exhibit calls on the audience to balance the way art functions in the city.
The artists envision “a world where humanity’s desire for beauty, and exploration are met, balancing functional city systems with unexpected moments of whimsy and delight”.
Block Party
Date: August 24-25
Time: 10am-7pm
Location: Lake Union Park
To close off this year’s festival, 50 installations will be installed at Lake Union Park. The Seattle Design Festival Block Party is a two-day street fair highlighting the powerful ways design affects our lives. Visitors will experience large-scale design installations, performances, and design activities all centered around the Festival’s 2019 theme, BALANCE.
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