(This article originally appeared on International Examiner and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
“We have often looked around and asked, ‘Where are the Black and Brown people working, and where are the Black and Brown clients?’ Because of this, we have been really intentional that our clientele represents who we are.”
This is more than just a business motto for Sonia Lynn-Abenojar and Sergio Max Legon-Talamoni, the cofounders of La Union Studio, an architecture, interior, and design consultancy. The (newly married) husband and wife team have taken their passion for architecture and design, along with their love for the diverse communities of the Pacific Northwest, to create a business that reflects who they are as individuals and entrepreneurs.
by Alexander Froehlich and the Seattle Architecture Lobby
The Seattle Design Festival comes downtown every year to celebrate “how design improves the quality of our lives and our community.” This year the Seattle Architecture Lobby will be conducting a Hostile Architecture Tour to explore who has the power to design, who doesn’t, and which communities are affected by design choices. Through a 10-stop tour we will examine design as the result of deliberate processes that serve some and not others. We will also discuss our role as designers with power and complicity in those processes which shape our city.
The Seattle Design Festival gave the public a free sneak peek of this year’s festival on Tuesday, August 21st at the Center for Architecture & Design. The sneak peak event was jammed with eager participants despite the cloud of wildfire smoke stifling the entire city. The event provided screen printing for attendees who brought t-shirts, and there was food and a slate of presenters who gave attendees just a small sampling of how the 2018 Seattle Design Festival will explore the theme of “trust”—how to build trust between communities, public space policymakers, businesses, technology companies, architects, designers, advocates and all the other community stakeholders who have an impact on how space is used in urban settings.
