We’re reaching new areas! We’ve started our first north Seattle project, in the Ballard neighborhood. With this exciting new project, we’ve been able to connect with new schools and new youth. For our design program we had youth coming from Shoreline, Sammamish, Bellevue and Seattle. We’re spreading the seeds of craft and leadership far and wide!

We partnered with the folks at Ballard P-Patch, for whom we designed a beautiful new patio space. Our design team conducted a site analysis and many client interviews to fully capture the scope of this project. Our partner wanted a patio with lots of counter space and storage, a washing station for fruits and vegetables, seating for at least 30 people as well as creating a cohesive flow with their pizza oven. All the while keeping in mind the overall feel and whimsicality of the garden.

While the design program for this project was condensed to 6 weeks, our typical design programs run between 10-12 weeks, and both youth and mentors rose to the challenge. We worked diligently sketching, building models, consolidating and repeating this process until we came to the final design.

A huge thank you to Hewitt especially Jake, Myles, Heather and Leah who worked with our youth to create a beautiful design. Hewitt hosted two design workshops in their downtown office; youth were able to envision themselves as architects while diving into the specifics of their collaborative design.

While we all worked hard to complete our design in our shortened time frame, we managed to have lots of fun and laughs. An amazing sense of community was created, in large part thanks to our amazing youth who were always willing to try new things and weren’t intimidated by new faces and people. The majority of our design youth are coming back for the build. Out of our 14 build students, 11 of them were involved in the design process. We’re incredibly thankful for all the enthusiastic support we’ve received as we waded into new waters.

Stay tuned to see our completed patio!