International Tent City Day

happy belated international tent city day. saturday we (7 students from my design activism class) held a charrette with 6 tent city 3 residents, and roughly ten other miscellaneous students, staff and faculty to redesign their kitchen tent. the kitchen tent is pretty damaged and in need of repair. the poorly framed palette like floor is unstable, nails and bolting for the floor are problematic since it has to move so often, the tables with food inside start rotting from rain entering the tent, the metal post connections are held together with duct tape. we separated in 3 groups and came up with some pretty feasible design alternatives. the day was just frankly magical! the TC residents and guests melded really well no one seemed disrespectful or presumptious. we all worked together as equals to try to solve a the problem at hand. at the end, one of the residents commented about how UW students have done stuff FOR them before but never actually involved them in the process and invited them to do it WITH them. that statement just made the whole day worth it. we'll have to figure out how to get $ to excute the building portion of the project after finals...buti just feel so enthusiastic and hopeful about using design in service for humanity....anyway, enough mushy-ness.... i'll post some pics as soon as i get some from people who were there and actually USED their cameras.