Walking and talking: Austin Design Week 2017 schedule highlights

Austin Design Week, inaugurated last year with impressive success, is back with another good-looking schedule, as well as the good (planned?) fortune of falling Nov. 6–10, thus once again leading into the first week of the East Austin Studio tour.

This year’s schedule, announced a couple of weeks ago, has too many highlights to name, but below are a few standouts from the Austin Design Week website. Note: Be sure to visit the website to find out which events require registration (most), how to register, and which events are and are not free of charge.

This year will once again include The Hub, a place to gather between events, meet up, grab some grub, lounge, join a roundtable (registration required), and explore art and design installations. It will be located at 310 East Third Street and open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily during the event.

There will also be a weeklong Design-a-Thon, in which teams take on the city's biggest design challenges and present their ideas a the end of the week. Details on how to get involved are here.

Below are a few of the featured and most intriguing-looking events for the week. We’ll be back early next week with a map of all the events, so watch this space.

Cranes in the Sky

Sunday, Nov. 5, noon-3 p.m., 7CO, 1501 East Seventh Street

Leaders and influencers of East Austin articulate ways we can work together over a ticketed chef prepared brunch with bottomless mimosas and Bloody Marys.

Urban Observations

Monday, Nov. 6, noon-1:30 p.m., Wisteria Courtyard, 516 Navasota Street

Using watercolor, participants will walk away with a deeper sense of engaging and connecting to the present and the spaces we all inhabit.

Intake on the Lake: A Night of Projection, Music and Design at the Iconic Seaholm Waterfront

Monday, Nov. 6, 6:30 p.m.-10 p.m., Seaholm Intake Building, 100 West Avenue

Despite the windy title, the opportunity to “visit, explore, and activate this historic building” is bound to prove visually and otherwise riveting.

Reclaiming Space: Feminism & Place-Making

Thursday, Nov. 7, 6 pm.-9 p.m., Lewis Carnegie, 1312 East Cesar Chavez Street

This panel event and short film screening will feature women-identifying professionals exploring the ways in which gender equity impacts both our built environments and how we interact with them. [Ed. note: See Alissa Walker’s excellent “Mansplaining the City” feature on Curbed for inspiration.]

Walks Well With Others

Friday, Nov. 10, 10 a.m.-noon, The ADW Hub, 310 East Third Street

Experience Austin through the lens of a pedestrian as you connect with both people and place, while learning more about the story of Austin through its sights and sounds.