Finding Dignity in Food Insecurity

On average, one in ten adults living in King County are experiencing food insecurity. This increases the demand for food distribution centers that help fulfill the basic nutritional needs of these individuals. However, due to time and financial restraints, these centers often lack the ability to achieve their mission while at the same time providing a quality experience for both the centers’ clients and volunteers.

Schemata is currently working on two projects that will help fulfill the need for greater access to food: Rainier Valley Food Bank and Issaquah Food and Clothing Bank. In our approach to design, we are not only considering how the square footage can be maximized in these spaces, but also how community members and volunteers will feel while engaging with them.

To help elevate the consumer experience, our team seeks to develop a model that allows community members to efficiently serve themselves - like shopping in a grocery store - and also implements multifunctional features, such as a courtyard that will be used as a waiting area. For administrative and operational functions, our team is designing workspaces for volunteers that have plenty of natural light and provide ample room for facility maintenance staff and tasks.

We at Schemata believe that people experiencing food insecurity shouldn’t have to sacrifice dignity to have access to nutritious food, and that folks who are volunteering their time should feel valued and be given the space needed to sustain the operation of these facilities.

 To help our effort to support these facilities, you can donate funds to Rainier Valley Food Bank and Issaquah Food and Clothing Bank.  

Project Update: Acer House Passed Design Review

Acer House, a mixed-used project in Seattle’s Central District, recently passed its Design Recommendations Meeting with the Central Area Design Review Board. The intersection is a cultural and community hub with the Garfield Community Center, NOVA at the Horace Mann School, Garfield High School, Medgar Evers Pool, Quincy Jones Performing Arts Center, and the Eritrean Community Center. The design team includes Schemata Workshop and Donald King, were also the authors of the Central Area Design Guidelines, and therefore Acer House embodies the community values for what development should look like. In a true expression of community voice, both the programming and design of the project has been shaped by community input.

The project is Seattle’s first anti-racist private development project and hopes to be the benchmark for future development around the city. Acer House will be the first project in Seattle to apply Afrofuturist design principles to a mixed-use project - not from the standpoint of high-tech materials, but in the spirit of creating a place where the Black community can see themselves in the past, present and future of the Central Area.

The design faced challenges associated to the scale of the building under current zoning and neighborhood context. To address this, our team, which includes design lead Donald King, collaborated with the Central Area Land Use Review Committee (LURC) to find the right balance of massing and design. Working collaboratively, the team accomplished a solution that fits within the existing environment. The final design solution was approved by the Design Review Board with no critiques. This stamp of approval validates months of hard work the team put into a designing a building that honors the history of the Central District and realizes the vision of what it could be.

Cohousing Patterns: Ceiling Height Variety

“A building in which the ceiling heights are all the same is virtually incapable of making people comfortable.”

It is all too often that the Common House is designed and built with the least funds (many communities prioritize the money for individual units) and therefore, the overall enclosure of the Common House is constructed with the idea that a future mezzanine or second floor will be added later. The resulting spaces for dining, conversation, and meal preparation all occur under a single ceiling.

Provide a variety of ceiling heights that are appropriate for the functions. The dining room may want to be a grand space with high ceilings, however, the kitchen will be more functional with lower ceilings. In addition, smaller seating groups for conversation are not inviting if they are located in a cavernous room with the same ceiling height as the dining room.

Bakken, a cohousing community in Northern Denmark, is comprised of duplexes, triplexes and a large common house. In the common house, the dining and seating area all occur under the same ceiling. The seating area is not welcoming and did not encourage residents to linger and talk. However, over half of the dining room floor framing had been installed with the idea that the second-floor mezzanine would be extended. While the project was never completed, the major framing elements were left in place creating an implied ceiling. The tables under this “lower” ceiling felt more intimate.

The height of a ceiling can also determine the intimacy of a space. The ceiling must be proportionate to the size of the room - a small room with a tall ceiling will feel equally uncomfortable as a large room with a low ceiling. The original pattern describes rules of thumb for ideal width-to-height ratios. The acoustics of any room are affected by the ceiling height and room proportion and should be given specific attention during design.

Design with Pride: LGBTQI+ Architects you need to know

For Pride Month, Schemata recognizes architects and designers in the LGBTQI+ community who are using their platforms to advocate for LGBTQI+ professionals within industry. In sharing their stories and opinions, these individuals increase visibility of the LGBTQI+ community in the design field and also provide words of encouragement for young LGBTQI+ professionals looking to enter the field.

Horatio Law

Horatio Law is a Portland-based artist who was one of five artists commissioned to create art for the AIDS Memorial Pathway in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. . His work Ribbon of Light is a series of three laminated glass sculptures inspired by poets impacted by the HIV/ AIDS pandemic. The piece debuted this month and can be viewed in the northeast corner of Cal Anderson Park adjacent to the Capitol Hill TOD Plaza.

“Much of my work stems from my identity and experience as a gay US citizen of Asian heritage,” Law shares in an interview with Art Beat Blog.

“Social interaction and community participation are important aspects in my installation work and public art projects. I create work for regular people that examines issues of identity, memory, history and the meaning of community. As a public artist who is interested in socially engaged work, I value collaboration and partnership with community members through collecting ideas, cultural materials, and engaging residents in planning and production of public art.”

Jane Greenwood

Jane Greenwood is Principal at Kostow Greenwood Architects In New York City. In 2017, Greenwood was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the LGBTQI+ community in the New York Business Journal -  a result of her continuous efforts to advocate for LGBTQI+ rights within the architecture and design industry. As founder of The Organization of Lesbian + Gay Architects and Designers, she encourages rising architects and designers to feel secure in the idea that who they love is irrelevant to their profession. Through this organization, she has also formed the New York City LGBT Historic Sites Projects which identifies and documents historic places in New York Coty connected to those in the LGBTQI+ community and tells the story of their influence on American culture.

A.L. Hu

A.L. Hu is and an architectural designer, writer and activist dedicated to challenging others to rethink what it means to be inclusive in the design industry. Through the Ascendant Neighborhood Development Corporation, they work to provide sustainable and equitable housing for residents East Harlem. As one of the voices for Architect Magazine, Hu also calls out injustices against those who identify as non-binary in the professional space. In an interview published on The Bluebeam Blog, Hu shares pivotal moments in their career that ultimately inspired their desire to become an activist for LGBTQI+ rights.

“I was realizing that I didn’t identify as a woman, and I think realizing that also had a lot to do with the way I approached design,” Hu said. “It really got me to think outside the box to understand that there is not a single right way to be an architect.”

To read the full article, click here.

We hope you all are enjoying Pride Month, and that these perspectives have inspired and sparked thoughts around how we in the industry can be more inclusive of those who identify with the LGBTQI+ movement.  While the voices presented show how much progress has been made over the years, they also highlight the work that still needs to be done in support of LGBTQI+ professionals. If you are a member of the LGBTQI+ community or a corporation looking to integrate LGBTQI+ perspectives into your practice, consider looking at these resources provided by Metropolis Magazine.

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Sources Cited

A.L. Hu. Architect. (n.d.). Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://www.architectmagazine.com/author/a-l-hu

Group, S. B. (n.d.). Mover & Shakers: Julia Nagele is an architectural icon in a male-dominated industry. Seattle Refined. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://seattlerefined.com/lifestyle/movers-shakers/movers-shakers-julia-nagele-the-emerald-hewitt-tallest-tower-designed-by-a-woman

Lindsay, E. (2018, July 17). Seattle AIDS Memorial Selects Lead Artist. Art Beat. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://artbeat.seattle.gov/2018/07/17/seattle-aids-memorial-selects-lead-artist/

Making an invisible history visible. NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2022, from https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/

Queer Spaces: LGBTQ voices and resources for architects and designers. Metropolis. (2022, June 2). Retrieved June 21, 2022, from https://metropolismag.com/viewpoints/pride-voices-resources/

Surabhi, P., & Patil, A. S. (2021, June 23). 10 architects or designers advocating for LGBTQA+ community - RTF: Rethinking the future. RTF | Rethinking The Future. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/know-your-architects/a4323-10-architects-or-designers-advocating-for-lgbtqa-community/

5 AAPI Architects and Designers You Need to Know

In honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Schemata wants to shed light on a few architects and designers of the AAPI community that have contributed to the architectural history of America as well as those who continue to push the boundaries of architecture and design today.

Minoru Yamasaki

Minoru Yamasaki is a first-generation Japanese American master architect born in Seattle, WA. During his time studying architecture at the University of Washington, he was also working in an Alaskan cannery to pay for his tuition. Working alongside fellow Asian coworkers, many of whom were poor, inspired Yamaski to invest in his talents and use them in a way that would make his life meaningful to both himself and those around him.

While Yamasaki is best known for being the mastermind behind the design of the World Trade Center, his work can be found in the skylines of many cities across the U.S.. In Seattle specifically, he is to credit the for the designs of the IBM building, Rainier Tower, and the Pacific Science Center- a current Schemata project.

Isamu Noguchi (1904 – 1988)

Isamu Noguchi is a half Japanese half Irish artist and designer born in Los Angeles, California. While he is best known for his sleek and organic furniture designs, Noguchi also created sculptures, gardens, lighting designs, ceramics, architecture and set designs; drawing inspiration from the places he traveled and lived throughout his life. His work simultaneously subtle and bold, traditional and modern, set a new standard for the reintegration of the arts.

Today, you can find one of his many public sculptures “Black Sun” at Capitol Hill’s very own Volunteer Park!

To learn more about Isamu Noguchi, visit https://www.noguchi.org/

Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo

Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo are a Seattle-based duo who founded Lead Pencil Studio- a firm that contains both an architectural practice that specializes in residential and commercial buildings and an art practice that focuses on site-specific pieces that reimagine the conditions of architecture at full scale. Han, who was born in South Korean and Mihalyo, a Washington native, joined forces as undergraduate students at the University of Oregon where they won a design competition as well as the State of Oregon Development of the Year Award. Almost a decade after graduating, they opened their firm in 2002. Since then, the couple’s work has been featured in several museums and galleries throughout the US and they have continued to receive grants, awards, and residencies, thus, creating the blueprint to successfully bridge the gap between art and architecture.

To view their current projects, visit https://www.leadpencilstudio.org/

John Belford- Lelaulu

Driven by the idea of social design, Belford- Lelaulu has collaborated with nonprofit organizations across the globe such as Habitat for Humanity to design spaces that cater to the specific needs of communities battling various hardships.

In an interview with Architecture Now, he describes how his Samoan background influences his approach to his work:

“There’s a (Samoan) proverb which is ‘O le ala i le pule o le tautua’, meaning, ‘The path to authority is through service, in order to do anything in Samoa, you need to be serving. You can’t just become an architect or a chief. You have to be helping different members of the community. For me, I ask myself how I can serve the most vulnerable people in our communities.”

Through this work, he also developed a new perspective on architecture and its societal impact. This realization then sparked a desire to create more opportunities for young Pasifika people, like himself, to explore humanitarian and social architecture. As a result, he established MAU Studio – providing educational opportunities and experiences that allows New Zealand’s youth to connect with their culture and engage with their community through meaningful architecture.

To learn more about John Belford-Lelaulu, check out this article

Suchi Reddy

Suchi Reddy is an Indian-American architect, artist, and founder of Reddymade- a design firm based in New York. The firm’s portfolio offers a wide variety of projects ranging from single family homes to public sculptures, all embodying Reddy’s cutting edge approach to art and design. Reddy’s Work has been featured in places such as Time square and The Smithsonian where it welcomes societal engagement and generates dialogue around topics of both local and global relevance.

One of her recent pieces, “me+you” is an interactive installation that debuted at the Smithsonian back in November of 2021. The sculpture combines elements of both architecture and artificial intelligence by inviting audience members to speak their “future vision” into one of the many designated points of the cloud base and, in response, the piece uses AI to translate the meaning, tone and sentiment of their words to then be reflected in a unique combination of color & light.  According to Reddy, the piece serves almost as an “Interactive mandala”- a spiritual Icon of South Asian religious art.

For more information about Suchi Reddy and her approach to design, check out this article recently featured in W Magazine.