Phone booths are on the endangered species list in NYC, but one architect has found a nifty way to give them new life: phone booth libraries! As part of his urban intervention project, the Department of Urban Betterment (DUB), architect John Locke has repurposed phone booths into communal libraries or book drops. Wait, could the the Smoke Monster be behind all this?
According to Designboon, Locke based his project on James Econs's "Phoneboox" in the UK (there also seems to be some resemblance to Book Booths). Locke constructed his shelves using plywood, but made sure to leave the phones entirely unobstructed and usable. It'll be interesting to see how long they last before they're either destroyed or deconstructed—either way, Locke is fascinated by antiquated technologies and how they can find new uses. And hey, who could pass up a chance to use the word "skeuomorph?"
Even as they are rendered obsolete by the ubiquity of smartphones, I’m interested in pay phones because they are both anachronistic and quotidian. relics, they’re dead technology perched on the edge of obsolescence, a skeuomorph hearkening back to a lost shared public space we might no longer have any use for. but they can also be a place of opportunity, something to reprogram and somewhere to come together and share a good book with your neighbors.
