SEATTLE RECONOMY
GOAL
How might we design a shared, community-scale space that enables Seattle REconomy’s diverse programs, partners, and community members to collaborate effectively, participate in the circular economy, and operate a functional hub for reuse, repair, and material redistribution at both the hyper-local and citywide level?
ROLE
Project Lead
User Research
Co-Design
Physical Prototype
TEAM
04 Designers
METHODS
User Research
Digital Rendering
Video Prototype
Physical Prototype
DELIVERABLES
Digital Rendering
01
INTRODUCTION
Plenty of
Space With No Plan
Seattle REconomy runs on three verbs: reuse, repair, share. Its Shoreline Tool Library lends tools, and around it sit a reuse store, a fixer collective, a bike shack, a makerspace and an education program, all squeezed into cramped or borrowed space.
9,000
SQ FT EXPANSION
A roughly 9,000 sq ft expansion would bring them together as a ReUse Commons. The obvious approach was to count the programs, divide the floor area and draw rooms.
The risk was in the connections, because a donation has to reach a fixer and a repaired item has the reach the store.
MAIN FLOOR • UPSTAIRS
MAIN FLOOR • DOWNSTAIRS
WAREHOUSE
And all we had was an empty floor plan. With no dimensions of the space.
02
RESEARCH & ANALYSIS
The Experts
Were Already
in the Building
Six interviews with staff and volunteers and more than eight hours of on-site observation became a set of requirement cards, one set per program.
6
Interviews with staff and
volunteers
8+
One set of requirements per
program
Two Workshops Produced Two
Different Ideals
I I facilitated two workshops where stakeholders moved the zones themselves. Both groups endorsed the same four principles:.
They did not agree on where
anything went.
9
zones to place
1
placed the same by both groups
5
put in different buildings
On paper, people also underestimated how much room equipment
and aisles take up.
03
USER TESTING
Breaking the Tie With
a Layout We Can Test
A third workshop would have produced a third opinion, and a decision had to be made. I made the call to draft a second iteration of the floor plan: one tentative placement per zone, to be tested with the 3D-printed pieces and presented to stakeholders in person.
The whole team and our client contact at REconomy decided each placement together, working from a zone matrix that compared the two sessions row by row, checked against the design requirements we updated after both workshops.
The Layout was a hypothesis, and the
model was how we tested it.
So I planned the 3D-printed kit, choosing which pieces it needed and how many, then printed every one: work stands, shelving, fixer desks, donation bins, machine tools and checkout counters, all at one consistent scale, set on a printed floor plan. In two usability sessions, stakeholders filled each zone with the equipment it would need.
WHAT THE MODEL CHANGED
01
Donation bins blocked
their own route to the
fixer room
02
Bike shack needed 36
inches clear per work
stand, plus wall storage
03
Fixer room grew from
one desk to space for
two or three fixers
04
Woodshop moved to the
back of the warehouse
for noise, dust, and loading
Staff and volunteers endorsed the final layout after testing it with their own hands.
04
FINAL
What We Handed Over
Walkthrough of the rendered Commons, from the street sign to the warehouse
TESTED LAYOUT
Layout &
requirements
The final floor plan design, adjusted in accordance to feedback from our user testing sessions. Includes accurate spatial zones as well as the most relevant design requirements pertaining to the respective zones. Meant to inform our stakeholders and the architects.
FINAL LAYOUT
Navigation
map
A spatially oriented map for customers, iterated from our final floor plan design. Includes annotations for restrooms, stairs, and elevated surfaces.
DIGITAL RENDERING
Digital visualization
of the space
A digital rendering of the proposed expansion. Built in accordance to the final floor plan design. Handed off to architects and contractors, meant for further iteration.
3D PRINTED KIT
The physical
model
The 3D printed kit including scaled down objects such as desks, shelves, chairs, and others. Meant to be used in tandem with the final floor plan design, as pictured.
