{WHAT}'Daddy, what are those weird cubes with a phone in it doing on the streets?' It's hard to imagine in this era, but there was a time without smartphones or even mobile phones. Nowadays the phonebooth rarely got used. The phonebooths are dying! They became useless objects on the middle of the streets. How can we give these useless objects a new function? A question where a lot of cities wants the answer on.
' they can also be a place of opportunity, something to reprogram and somewhere to come together and share a good book with your neighbors '
- John Locke
Architect John Locke, who's behind Department of Urban Betterment, saw an opportunity and came with a project to turn the phonebooths into communal libraries or book drops. Sharing and bringing people together with books in the individualistic cities.
Similar project with the same open-air public library formula is the outdoor library in Magdeburg, Germany by KARO. Artist Massimo Bartolini also came with an outdoor public library project for a Belgian art festival.
{FUTURE}Eventually these projects are all about bringing people together. Finding ways to connect people in the buzzy individualistic cities. Using public places to create that. Creating solidarity in the city, but where you can still be yourself as an individual. I think that the projects with that goal are going to play a big role for cities in the future.
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SOURCE: popupcity.net