See-it-clearly Architecture Lab
SUN - TEA (STACK BED TYPE 01)
Tim & I have started designing “stack beds”. Sleeping and living structures for tight spaces. “This will be my jam! Small quarters? Tight spaces? I’m an expert! LoL. I’m really hyped up and enthusiastic about this project. Looking forward to getting down to business.” - Timothy James Young, Solitary Architect. 03.05.25
Tim was full of ideas. I was happy, but the fact that Tim’s cell at San Quentin was not much bigger than a double bed was never lost on me. That was his whole world, alone, for 23 hours a day. I made a scale 1:50 model of the room. With an egg in it. The nestegg. Tim’s cell.
Lamis, from Hebron, West Bank, had sent me a poem that day. I lay it on the floor as a carpet. A carpet with a patch of white-out.
Tim came up with design ideas. For various bed-types which could work in different scenarios.
“The Floating Bed Design is a stack design that allows one to not only save space, but to maximize it. I make many of my insights based on my “something out of nothing” indoctrination, as well as my reality of being forced to live, exist and function within the stifling, concrete confines of a nestegg.” - TY
The name? “Stack Bed”.
“An official name for a bed that lies atop a structure? Hmm... For now I’ll go with “stack bed.” Why? The structure below it holds a wide range of functions and possibilities. I can hear/envision people saying, “so, what’s beneath your stack bed?” Again, it could be anything from a vanity room to a man cave, mini bar to a den.” - TY, 08.05.25
“I’d have to say the drink I miss most is my grandmother’s sun tea. There’s just something about leaving tea to slow brew in the sun all day that just does something magical to it. Or, perhaps that magical element came by way of my grandmother? …Tea with a wedge of lemon. The lemon represents my sour, acidic journey.” - TY, 19.05.25
Dear Tim, brother, Making a model of a Sun-tea stack bed, using your medical notes. It incorporates some of your ideas. -SK 22.05.25
The model was made from Tim’s medical notes:
“Contracted original stain of covid in June 2020. It was a severe case. Never recovered. Never been the same. It resulted in long covid. At present, I still don't even have the full range of taste and smell. On a good day it's about 75 percent. Aliments, complications and diagnosis since June 2020 as it relates to long covid:
Shortness of breath.
Chronic fatigue.
Brain fog.
Memory loss.
Waning of memory retention level.
Facial pain.
Migraines.
Neurological and cognitive decline.
Fibromyalgia.
Rheumatism.
Joint and muscle dysfunction.
Sleep disorders.
Vertigo.
Nausea.
Equilibrium issues.
GI issues.
Heart and lung issues.
Peripheral and pitted edema.
Exercise intolerance.
Muscle weakness and muscle fatigue.
Anemia.
Autoimmune disease.
Dysphagia.
Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.
Pain.
Severe pain.
That is not a complete list, but a gist. I am being denied medication and care for all the above. Forced to "suck it up," and suffer. Have also had to fîght to see specialists, get testing, diagnosis, etc. And even with diagnosis and recommendations of specialists, the nestegg doctors refuse to provide said medication and care.” - TY, May 2025
Wilderness
This wilderness
A forest of new dimensions
Asphalt for grass, gun towers for trees
A zoo of rats, roaches,
And the shadows of men.
Nature made concrete
Permanently encased
In a matrix, a maze
Phantoms without names
Exhibits of no escape.
Numerical skeletons
Both waste and fertilizer
Composted
By systemic machinations
Black ecology—a cry unheard!
© Timothy James Young
The second thing that came to my mind was mirrors. In solitary, as I understand it, the only way for you to see group scenes was in fragments through the cloudy scraps of mirror. To my mind came a whole film composed in scenes filmed in pieces of mirror: disorientation, the fracturing of the mind and body, broken experience, broken everything, broken heart, memory, real and unreal, illusion, delusion, mirrors to faces.
It’s not just about seeing, but a way of seeing. And how film might achieve that.
-SK, 18.05.25
My work will always leave me with moral quandaries.
Dear Tim, Brother, Solitary Architect
Is the nestegg a case study? Is ‘Solitary Architect’ a case study? Are we reducing you to metaphors because the world can love the metaphor but not the real man? Perhaps.
And yet, beyond the metaphor there is something more: in this Stack Bed is your grandmother’s Sun Tea. I always looked for her in our work. There, in the patch of yellow light from the secret window under the bed (grab space). Or up there, in the chamber space. Or higher still, at the council of ancestors. Without a doubt, your way of seeing the world wants expression, so why not through architecture. Yellow light: your sour acidic journey. Your “shades of misconception”.
-SK, 26.05.25