We live in a digital world dominated by media platforms that exist to connect people and creativity. How have these social sharing platforms affected the public sphere?
Graffiti: Look at the incredible number of hashtags and public images relating to graffiti on Instagram below.
Graffiti: Look at the incredible number of hashtags and public images relating to graffiti on Instagram below.
We often place considerable significance on the location of graffiti to better understand its function and the artist's intended audience. However, the abundance of grafitti-related activity on Instagram demonstrates the decreasing significance of physical place and underscores a new public sphere: digital space. Where one places graffiti arguably does not matter because anyone can find it on social media.
So, what is left in the urban environment? A shareable environment.
So, what is left in the urban environment? A shareable environment.
- Insists on a physical activity (non-capitalist consuming of items) and an engaging in an exchange.
- The new public sphere is about shareable space, a social space.
If the public sphere matters less because of online platforms, and digital spaces have become the new public sphere, what are we left with when we want to engage physically? Shareable urbanism.
- No opportunities for active engagement in the urban environment, so shareable urbanism demands participation.
- An infrastructure where people mutually contribute.
- Shareable urbanism exists in our everyday lives.
Explore this page to learn about John Locke's repurposing of pay phone booths in New York City and the Little Free Libraries Project, two bottom-up initiatives that demonstrate the emergence of shareable urbanism in the digital age.
Ubran intervention: an egalitarian library system
"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." – John Locke [1]
John Locke is an New York City based architectural designer that pioneered the converting of pay phones into community book shelves on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In this way, Locke attempts to make the little-used structures relevant again. Locke's pay phone project is part of the Department of Urban Betterment, a bottom-up project that seeks out creative uses for underutilized public space. View the slideshow below to see the progression of Mr. Locke's pay phone installations.
How did Locke get the idea for his pay phone intervention project?
"The ubiquity of phone booths is interesting because they are completely obsolete, unevenly distributed in outlying neighborhoods and they carry a strong sense of nostalgia with me. They've already evolved from their original function as person-to-person communication technology into their second iteration as pedestrian-scaled billboards. I wanted to see if there is a third option in that, yes, they get our eyes for advertising dollars, but they can also give value back to a neighborhood. I was most interested in turning what is perceived as an urban liability into an opportunity." [2]
Although New York City has tried to convert antiquated pay phones into WiFi hotspots, Mr. Locke voiced wanting nothing to do with the city's initiative in an interview with The New York Times in 2012. In keeping with the DIY movement, Mr. Locke posts the plans for his shelves on his web site and encourages readers to install their own book-sharing infrastructure in their neighborhoods.
"The ubiquity of phone booths is interesting because they are completely obsolete, unevenly distributed in outlying neighborhoods and they carry a strong sense of nostalgia with me. They've already evolved from their original function as person-to-person communication technology into their second iteration as pedestrian-scaled billboards. I wanted to see if there is a third option in that, yes, they get our eyes for advertising dollars, but they can also give value back to a neighborhood. I was most interested in turning what is perceived as an urban liability into an opportunity." [2]
Although New York City has tried to convert antiquated pay phones into WiFi hotspots, Mr. Locke voiced wanting nothing to do with the city's initiative in an interview with The New York Times in 2012. In keeping with the DIY movement, Mr. Locke posts the plans for his shelves on his web site and encourages readers to install their own book-sharing infrastructure in their neighborhoods.
“There aren’t a lot of people out,” he said. “You can just go down, find a good booth, carry it out, latch it in. It takes seconds. And then just fill it up with books and let’s wait and see what happens.” - Mr. Locke on the best time to install a shelf, an early Sunday morning. [3]
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“It’s a spontaneous thing that just erupts at certain locations,” he said. “People like it, people are inspired by it, but then it disappears again.” - Mr. Locke on the impermanence of his shelf installations [4]
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The first version of Locke's egalitarian library was almost immediately emptied; the books were taken within six hours and the shelf within ten days of the installation. On the reason for the "vandalism" of Locke's own unsanctioned illegal activity he comments, "as I’m sure you know, every sequential block in New York can have an entirely different feel than the last. And there are a number of subjective qualities of the streetscrape that can affect how people react to something like these mini-libaries, such as retail storefronts, street traffic, proximity to public transportation, etc. I think the location of the first iteration felt a little too abandoned where the second had more pedestrian traffic and was closer to higher density apartment buildings." [5]
"I plan to continue testing and iterating versions to see what works best to promote community engagement. I've been in touch with an inspiring number of motivated individuals from a broad cross-section of disciplines who'd like to do something—anything—to get involved in urban betterment issues. Like us, they believe that through collaboration and sensitive interventions in urban space, we have the potential to change the world for the better." - Locke [6]
Little free libraries project: providence, ri
John Locke is not the DIY urbanist to have implemented community book-sharing infrastructure. Little Free Libraries is a worldwide organization that has helped individuals install at least 25,000 libraries as of January 2015. In walking around my neighborhood in Providence, RI I was able to interact with one library associated with the LIttle Free Libraries movement.
Mission: To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide. To build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generation.
Mission: To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide. To build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generation.
The following are images of a Little Free Library not shown on the above map in Fox Point. I visited the library for the first time on a Sunday morning. The library was filled with an assortment of books in a range of genres. I order to gage how community members interacted with the book share, I inserted slips of paper into the books asking users to engage with me at [email protected]. Unfortunately, I have yet to receive any responses, but would appreciate hearing any ideas on how to best engage with the free library and members of the Fox Point community on the library's usage. Please use sharedurbanism@gmail to submit suggestions.
Works Cited
1. http://gothamist.com/2012/02/19/phone_booth_library.php
2. http://www.citylab.com/design/2012/02/how-new-york-pay-phones-became-guerrilla-libraries/1288/
3. http://www.nytimes.com/compendium/reader/TOLZY7U2KV2V4QVDAJHLQQNFQCA/625/2119
4. http://theamericanreader.com/phone-booth/
5. http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/new-york-architect-john-locke-brings-books-pay-phone-stand-blog-entry-1.1637769
6. http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/new-york-architect-john-locke-brings-books-pay-phone-stand-blog-entry-1.1637769
2. http://www.citylab.com/design/2012/02/how-new-york-pay-phones-became-guerrilla-libraries/1288/
3. http://www.nytimes.com/compendium/reader/TOLZY7U2KV2V4QVDAJHLQQNFQCA/625/2119
4. http://theamericanreader.com/phone-booth/
5. http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/new-york-architect-john-locke-brings-books-pay-phone-stand-blog-entry-1.1637769
6. http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/new-york-architect-john-locke-brings-books-pay-phone-stand-blog-entry-1.1637769