Design and Digital Equity in Physical Spaces
By Cindy Fu
Photo: Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times
For this project, I had the opportunity to have a virtual interview with Daniel Pak, co-founder and director of Totem Star. During our interview, what piqued my interest was the mention of the fact that Totem Star was recently breaking ground for a new recording studio for young artists in the historic Downtown Seattle King Street Station and provided us with a link to a Seattle Times article breaking down this historic event. While he didn’t go into the behind-the-scenes too much about how the architectural design was formatted, we were able to see images relating to their planned construction for how the space would be formatted. Due to his experience throughout the pandemic mentoring youth song artists and doing navigation via Zoom to improve rooms and other space at home for recording, Pak has had experience with mapping physical usage of spaces. Through working with representatives from the City of Seattle to young teens, collaboration is an ever present part of his work.
Likewise, in the design space, collaboration is always key. Between working with stakeholders to designers to users and other individuals or groups involved, being able to assess the needs of others with a design is a crucial component of any successful product. Whether through working with others to iterate, reconsidering the needs and wants of users, and satisfying stakeholders, working with other people is a key component to design.
In applying collaborative design to the real world, it becomes very necessary to understand the needs of the users. Due to the current West Seattle location of Totem Star’s physical recording studio, a frequent pain point mentioned in our interview was how the young artists he was working with found it difficult to commute. By having this new space in King Street Station, it becomes much easier for those commuting to reach the location right inside King Street Station. Through collaborating and assessing the needs of the people he was working with, not only is the architectural space considerate of the needs of the ‘users’ but also the location.
