Dialogue between designers and the public has long been essential to the Seattle Design Festival’s (SDF) ethos, but with this year’s theme—FEEDBACK—it takes center stage. Interpretations of the theme span from self-reflection as a free form of feedback, to community input aimed at improving neighborhoods, to feedback explored as an auditory phenomenon. Participants are just as diverse, ranging from large architecture firms returning year after year, to emerging solo designers, to collaborative teams of university students and professors. In any case, Senior Communications Manager Bray Hayden hopes the six-day festival is “engaging and interactive for the public, fun, and thought-provoking, and gives people a sense of how they can be a part of design … [and] change their city.”

The event is a strategic initiative of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Seattle to “connect architects to the rest of the design world,” including city planners, landscape architects, and artists, as well as the general public, says Hayden. In its 15th year, SDF’25 runs August 16–21, with the main event—The Block Party—held at Lake Union Park on Saturday and Sunday. Visitors can wander through the grass and interact with the installations, participate in a pop-up art project or puzzle game, and even catch a panel of graphic designers recalling their epic design fails on the Mainstage. Even after the installations come down, the fun continues at Design Mixers hosted by Adobe, ARCADE NW, and Pratt Fine Arts Center throughout the week—offering chances to mingle or engage in hands-on workshops. The festival culminates with the music- and dance-filled Closing Party at LMN’s The Shop. 

Hayden likens the playfulness of the installations to architectural follies; unlike follies, however, which are meant to be viewed from a distance, these projects invite interaction. “We want designers to engage with the public just as much as we want the public to engage with design,” she notes. In My Own Words is a collaboration between Seattle’s Office of Planning & Community Development and Agency Landscape + Planning, who are working on seven regional center plans throughout the city, including in South Lake Union. “[Playing] off the theme of old telephone technology,” shares Agency’s Kelvin Vu, the team asks participants to ‘dial up’ and voice their vision for the neighborhood’s next 20 years. 

Agency Landscape + Planning weren’t the only ones to interpret FEEDBACK along the lines of a sonic experience. 5ft2 Studio Architects play off the idea of audio feedback with their installation, 76dB+, a wooden spiral rimmed by seven microphones with headsets. 5ft2 prompts users to speak into these headsets and hear an instant replay of their looped and distorted voice. In a more profound turn, they spur us to “explore the dangers of echo chambers, confirmation bias, and identity-driven conflict in contemporary society,” raising “the critical question: when we only hear ourselves, are we truly saying anything at all?” SDF embraces crucial problems such as these, but it also leaves room for fun and games. 

Shredded Ego by Seattle Design Nerds is a hit with the five-and-under crowd. Toddlers write (with parental help) a line of bad feedback they’ve received (or that was the idea, at least, I make no assumptions of a three-year-old’s ability to self-reflect) on a colored piece of paper, then shred it up. A tutu-clad ‘bouncer’ greets them at the entrance to an inflatable snowglobe ‘club’ where they then toss the shredded criticism into the air and “dance in the colorful rain of [their] hater’s tears.” 

Across the lawn, DLR Group’s Listening Skin entices crawlers and climbers to play in a web of reclaimed fishing nets. Its lower levels invite mobility-impaired visitors and tired parents, and each pocket’s ergonomic design is based on real human bodies of various sizes. The neon structure provides both a second use for an otherwise wasted product and imagines the future of architecture: “What if buildings could react and reconfigure through human nudge and movement?”

Since 2024, SDF’s Sustainability Commitment has guided what happens to installations after the festival’s end. Teams have three choices: 1) promise to reuse the materials in their own work, 2) donate salvageable materials to the University of Washington’s (UW) FabLab, or 3) partner with a non-profit that will adopt the installation post-festival. The National Organization for Minority Architects’ Northwest chapter (NOMA NW) chose the third option. Only, instead of just donating their project to Black Star Farmers (BSF)—a coalition of farmers centered around Black and Indigenous values, food sovereignty, and land acknowledgement—they developed A Seat at the Farmer’s Table in tandem with the community organization. NOMA NW President Cierra Higgins says from the outset the team ensured they “cater [the installation] to something [BSF] may need on [their] property” in order to “make sure this project lives beyond us.” Right now, this takes the form of a covered seating area made of wood and colorful acrylic panels, but the team plans to expand the structure with room for a communal pantry and fridge to store produce. It will find its permanent home at BSF’s Dakota Place property in Columbia City.

Graduate students in UW’s Barry Onouye Endowed Architecture Studio built a 24-foot-long arching wooden pavilion they call the Timber Wave. They developed a “W” module out of dimensional Washington-grown Douglas fir and hemlock, forming a reciprocal frame where the parts lean against each other without the need for fasteners. Professor Tyler Sprague explains that there is “no formwork, scaffolding, or frames” necessary to construct the pavilion, making it easy to assemble and disassemble. If that sounds cool, imagine it twice the size with hanging benches—that’s what the students unveiled in the college’s Gould courtyard during Finals Week this past spring.

SDF prides itself on being an “entry point” for emerging designers. Take Arpo Sriapha, who designed and built her Feedback Machine as a one-woman show (okay, maybe “the guy at Home Depot” helped her cut the plywood floor panels). While lines formed to take pictures with her Instagramable “Self-Reflection is Free Feedback” mirror, the selfie snappers stayed to ponder deeper questions. Sriapha asks us to consider—when it comes to direction from a boss or professor—if we’d rather have a “map” or a “compass.” She expands, “think about how you want to give feedback to people and also how you want to receive feedback.” 

Sriapha may have gone solo, but emerging artist group Lilac Church leaned on one another to create Imprints, a sensory sandbox with textured balls that leave behind patterned paths. “We’re just creative dudes,” remarks Alex G. of the informal group of friends from Seattle Makers who banded together for this project. Though he doesn’t consider himself an “artist” or a “designer,” he still feels welcomed at SDF, noting it’s one of “the most accessible artistic events in the city.” The design festival’s quick turnaround allows young designers the chance to see a project through from beginning to end—a rarity in the world of architecture, where projects often take years to complete.

From big firms, to students, to just a group of “creative dudes,” SDF is a conversation pit for Seattle’s design community. But you need not be a creative professional to engage in the fun, as their mission is to “unleash the design thinker in everyone.” Many a visitor first stumbled upon the event while walking their dog or taking their kid to the park, only to make a tradition of coming back yearly. SDF Communications Coordinator Claire Needs hopes these visitors “feel invited into this community of design-minded people, and feel like it's something they can be a part of and have a voice in, because it really does affect the infrastructure where we live so deeply.”

Miss the fun? Catch the Festival Replay on SDF’s YouTube channel.