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PLATFORMS BY TILT
Architects should shift the culture and its attitudes away from using environments as commodities towards a direction which sees them as symbols of what human labor is capable of inventing and executing… inventing environments which demand basic changes in the use of natural and human resources and thereby coerce changes in policy to permit these new ideas to emerge. -UW professor Michael Pyatok
A / WINNING MEMORIAL FOR SEATTLE DESIGN BUILD CHALLENGE 2008 AT TENT CITY. PHOTO BY MERITH BENNETT B / MOBILE SHOWER FOR BALLARD HOMES FOR ALL COALITION, "ROVER1". C / WALL AND ROOD DETAIL OF ROVER1 D / INTERIOR OF ROVER1. PHOTOS B,C +D BY ASHLE FAUVRE
We build a tangible platform on which one may engage in a commentary about culture, both locally and universally.
basic and common desires of all humans to be seen and to have privacy, to engage or to rest. Individuals seek dialogue with society even when the framework of consumerism is not open to them and civic policy does not favor their mission.
lots. Through interactions at Ballard soup kitchens, the groups had informally identified 50 to 100 car campers who needed a reliable base. TiLT helped the group envision a viable plan: Ballard churches clustered within walking distance would provide 4 parking spaces for campers. A parking space at a central church would hold a facility: a shower or kitchen, creating a resource and community space for the whole group. The Ballard coalition donated funds for the trailer to serve as a base.
The project built in New Orleans was a bench for a park ringed by FEMA trailers. The bench offered a place to stop, rest, and contemplate. The slatted construction reflected the traditional housing that surrounded the park. The cube form was intersected by two horizontal shelves which slid in and out of the cube to create seating platforms. The platforms faced either west toward the baseball field or east toward the playground. The design won the design build competition by offering the new community choice, respite, and personalization.
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In the spring of 2008, TiLT organized their own three-day design build competition in Seattle. The group determined that a client should be found who would assume responsibility for the resulting designs. The advice of UW professor and Jersey Devil founder Steve Badanes led the group to local organization SHARE/WHEEL, a homelessness advocacy group. SHARE initiated and manages Seattle’s tent cities: nomadic tent sites for the homeless, generally located on church properties in Seattle and Eastside cities. These encampments utilize the special caveats that places of worship enjoy from state regulations. A
In the spring of 2007, architecture students from UW traveled to New Orleans to participate in a three day design build competition. Returning to Seattle, we organized ourselves as TiLT. TiLT has undertaken projects that propose alternatives to traditional place-making. These constructions respond to the
For the competition, SHARE requested designs for toilets and WHEEL, a women’s group, for memorials. The city of Seattle claims that encampments of homeless in greenbelts adjacent to freeways are unhygienic, hazardous to the public, and therefore disposable. SHARE requested an intervention that was political in motivation, but also addressed a very basic need for privacy and selfdetermination: the portable toilet.
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The first prize in the competition went to a memorial designed and fabricated by a team of ten UW architecture graduate students. The design was intended to work as the homeless community worked: the parts could be dispersed to many members, who would then assemble the components into a memorial to their lost friends. The form was a steel cube that defined a room with a floor of inverted boxes. The boxes held colorful plexiglass plates, inscribed with the names of the decieased, quotations, and poetry, to be suspended from the frame. A special box to hold blank plates for inscriptions was included. In the summer of 2008, Sustainable Ballard and the Ballard Homes for All Coalition approached TiLT design a master plan for a series of car encampments in nearby church parking
TiLT designed and built the structure; enclosing it in a double layer of polycarbonate panels surrounding fluorescent bulbs, making the shower into a nightlight and a way-finding device. PB Elemental opened their ‘boneyard’ of surplus building supplies for the group, and TiLT purchased the panels. The Ballard coalition publicized the prototype at the Ballard Sustainability Fair, and took the master plan proposal to the State, which awarded them $10,000 to develop it. Architecture practice—in the traditional sense—is not TiLT’s practice, but it is no barrier to our practice. Much of our work involves working around the edges of standard building codes. We are not primarily concerned with getting it all down on paper. We build a tangible platform on which one may engage in a commentary about culture, both locally and universally. We seek communities with something to articulate on that platform. We have the liberty to choose our clients and we enter into a reflective dialogue with them. Together we conceive and implement projects. We use our skills and craft to aid the client and ourselves by freely enlisting with them in strategies to get grants and donations, to build in increments, and to explore alternatives. We don’t say, “Here are some beautiful drawings, call us when you have the money.” We say, “The first thing we need is a site. Who would let you use their parking lot? OK, we can go talk to them with you. Next, we need materials and expertise. We can call so and so, who can you call?” TILT is a grassroots coalition of designers, architects, and builders based in Seattle, Washington.