Schemata’s Commitment: MLK Day of Service at Everest Park

At Schemata, our volunteer efforts at Everest Park are a reflection of our core values and our commitment to our communities. These initiatives demonstrate our ongoing investment in the communities we serve, as we seek to create a positive, lasting impact in the places where we live and work. Participating in events like MLK Jr. Day of Service strengthens our connection to the community and reaffirms our dedication to meaningful, hands-on service.

Everest Park Restroom Facility: Enhancing Community Spaces

Schemata is proud to partner with the City of Kirkland to design a new restroom facility at Everest Park. This project will replace the outdated, inaccessible restrooms, which have struggled to accommodate the park’s growing number of visitors, particularly during the busy summer months.

The new restroom shelter will be a visually striking addition to the park, thoughtfully located for optimal accessibility. Drawing inspiration from the shapes and elements of the adjacent ball field, the design ensures that the facility will complement the park's environment while offering functional, welcoming spaces for all parkgoers.

The upgraded restroom facility will feature:

-          Men’s and women’s restrooms

-          Two single-stalled all-gender restrooms

-          Seating areas for visitors to relax and enjoy the surroundings

-          An overhang to provide shelter from rain in the winter and sun in the summer

MLK Jr. Day of Service 2025: Stewardship with Green Kirkland

On MLK Jr. Day of Service 2025, Schemata volunteers joined the Green Kirkland Partnership to contribute to park restoration and environmental stewardship efforts. Our team made meaningful contributions, including:

-          Removing invasive species to ensure a thriving, balanced ecosystem

-          Mulching to improve soil conditions and promote sustainable growth

Why Volunteering Matters: Making a Lasting Impact Beyond the Project

Volunteering is deeply embedded in Schemata’s values. It is not only an opportunity to give back to the communities we serve but also a way to foster growth, collaboration, and a lasting positive impact. Through volunteering, we empower our team members to create meaningful change—not just in the projects we directly work on but in the broader community.

Our commitment to volunteerism extends far beyond the confines of individual projects. As part of our JUST certification, we encourage each team member to volunteer at least once per quarter, ensuring that we engage with and contribute to the broader needs of the communities where our clients operate. By supporting these communities in ways that go beyond the scope of our architectural and design work, we strengthen relationships, promote shared responsibility, and build a deeper connection with the people we serve.

This approach fosters collaboration, supports sustainability, and reinforces our commitment to the well-being of every community we touch, allowing us to make a tangible difference not just through our work, but through our ongoing presence and dedication to service.

Architects in Schools

As volunteers in AIA Seattle’s Diversity Roundtable (DRT) Committee, we are about to embark on another adventure with our Architects in Schools program! As the 2017 - 2018 school year is now in full swing, we wanted to share a little bit about the program, the past work we’ve accomplished, and our exciting plans for the future.

First, a little bit of background. The DRT’s Architects in Schools Program is designed to expose K-8 students of underrepresented communities to architecture, and engage them in the design process. The goal is to give the youth involved an understanding of design basics through hands-on experiences and discussions, while focusing on bringing awareness of the architectural profession to children of diverse racial backgrounds. This is in support of the DRT’s overarching mission; to enrich the architectural profession by nurturing future designers who have diverse experiences, skill sets, and perspectives. Such shifts will create innovative solutions and approaches, while supporting an inclusive environment within the architectural profession.

Architects in Schools has been a part of the DRT’s agenda in the past, however last year, we rebooted the curriculum with a new pilot program at St. Edward’s Elementary School in Columbia City. DRT volunteers worked with 19 of the school’s eighth-grade students, all either female or minorities, through weekly one-hour lessons. The curriculum for the pilot was divided into quarterly groups of sessions, which introduced students to the profession, taught them the basics of the design process, and exposed them to architectural drawing techniques. The program ended with a final design project and public presentation, where the students learned SketchUp as a tool to express their designs. The broader strategy for last year was to develop the students’ creative problem-solving and computer skills, as well to help with their math and artistic development.

Sprinkled throughout our classroom sessions with the students, the University of Washington provided a guided tour of the Department of Architecture where students learned about the first steps toward becoming an architect. We also incorporated an office tour, where students heard about how a firm works, and were able to ask questions to get a sense of what it’s like to work in an architectural office.

The first two sessions for this year’s Architects in Schools kicked off a couple weeks ago at St. Edward. We’re excited to have support through the K-8 Architecture & Design Education Grant from The Architects Foundation and Armstrong World Industries Foundation this year to be able to expand what our program can offer. We will also be shifting the curriculum focus from computer based design, to honing skills around scale, model building, and transforming 2D drawings into 3D physical forms.

Looking towards the future, we are hoping to broaden our outreach to multiple schools within the next year or two. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to grow and evolve our program!

-Marijana & Margaret

Designing Where We Live through the Eyes of Youth

Schemata Workshop will be hosting a teen model-building workshop in collaboration with the Seattle Architecture Foundation about urban multi-family residential architecture exploring its various social and design issues.  The participants will get a personalized tour of Jackson Place, a vibrant cohousing community in Seattle, as an example of a multi-family housing alternative. Grace, Will and Mira have been hard at work developing the curriculum alongside SAF and are excited to host.  

If you know a teen aged 11-16 who would be interested in partcipating in this workshop, you can find more information here.  You may also contact us at info@schemataworkshop.com.

Community Recap - SAF - From Wheels to Woonerf

The Wheels to Woonerfs event on Tuesday, September 16,2014 was a free event hosted by the Seattle Architecture Foundation for the 2014 Seattle Design Festival: Design in Motion.   It consisted of an exclusive behind the scenes tour of the King Street Station restoration project, an AIA National Award recipient, followed by a panel discussion at the Klondike Musuem presenting various facets of urban design and transportation planning. 

The tour was led by Tim Williams of ZGF, project architect for the King Street Station restoration. Immaculately redone, the station is an exemplary case of a historic architecture preservation project.  The most exciting part of the tour was the behind the scenes access to the two-upper stories which were left unfinished for a future office tenant.  The space is still available for rent if you know of anyone interested! 

Photo Credit: Letao Tao

Photo Credit: Letao Tao

Photo Credit: Letao Tao

Our panelists were carefully chosen to span a wide array of expertise on transportation design and was energetically moderated by Lyle Bicknell (City of Seattle, DPD). 

Steven Shain (City of Seattle, DPD) presented the upcoming plans for the Link extension, its opportunities and challenges and what to look forward to in the upcoming few years. It was really exciting to hear about projects that we are contributing to in such a public and positive way.  

Steven was followed by Tim Williams (ZGF Architects) who segwayed, pun intended, into a presentation on bicycle infrastructure, a continued interest for our Schemata bikers.  He presented several bike-related projects in Seattle including the protected bike lane on 2nd ave and the bike-share program 'Pronto!' slated for official release this fall.  Tim ended with a reminder that we are nowhere near as bike-savvy as the Dutch and a call-to-action to aspire to their infrastructure capacity.  

Photo Credit: Letao Tao

Kris Snyder (Hewitt) then presented three Seattle woonerf (shared street) projects explaining the design concepts behind the urban intervention, the challenges and the outcomes.  He was very optimistic about the direction the Department of Transportation was taking in terms of being more open about new design solutions for transportation planning.

We finished off with Lesley Bain (Framework) who questioned the urban design of downtown streets, presenting a "traveling lounge" pilot project and opening up with the question of what will happen to the buses when the downtown tunnel will be exclusively for the Link. Her proposed solution imagined a system with a connected double-core (at King Street Station and Seattle Center) from which bus routes could array from the hubs. 

From left:  Lyle Bicknell, Lesley Bain, Kris Snyder, Tim William, Steven Shain.

Photo Credit: Letao Tao

Photo Credit: Letao Tao

Some interesting points that I jotted down that night:

• The importance of language:  let's not vilify car users, but rather empower car-owners to believe that alternative transportation solutions are better.  
• There is an incredible amount of growth projected for Seattle in the upcoming years from industry giants moving into the city like Amazon and Weyerhauser.  How will we be able to capture that increase in population both in terms of housing and transportation capacity?  And what happens if Amazon decides to leave the downtown core?
• Pronto! bike-sharing to be available in Fall 2014 -- just around the corner!  
• The benefits of seeing the city and to be seen zipping past traffic in above ground transit versus underground subway systems.
• Factors influencing the success of an outdoor mini-lounge (or parklet?):  agency of adjacent business owners, foot traffic, vehicular traffic, movable furniture vs. fixed furniture.
• Weaving the street right of way to slow down car traffic in woonerf design.
• The learning transition time it takes for people to get used to new design features can lead to some very funny situations. 
• After mulling about it for the past week, my answer to Lyle's question of what I would Iove to see tomorrow in Seattle transporation infrastructure...a more efficient public transit connection between Ballard and Capitol Hill...please!

This event was my first event as co-chair of the Design in Depth committee and I was extremely pleased it was such a smooth-running success!  Special thanks goes out to two new but extremely resourceful volunteers, Sandy Chalk and Dan Fernandez for putting together such a terrific group of panelists; Stacy Segal for her dedicated work as SAF executive director and to all the other SAF volunteers who helped out at the event, including our engaging panelists!  

Please click here for more photos from the event by volunteer photographer Letao Tao.