Design Study
Davies Tang + Toews design a Little Free Library
An open-source design for Little Free Library/NYC
Design Team: Davies Tang + Toews
Community Partner: La MaMa
Books are a point of contact, whether recognized or not, between two people and the infinite unseen world, a share across time and space. We feel this when we see someone reading on the train, an exchange now diminished by the introduction of technology.
Our interest in the Little Free Libraries lies in a love of the abandoned beauty and importance of books. We find its counterpart in the desire to reclaim lost locations of human exchange: phone booths, postage windows, ticket kiosks that are never open anymore. This project is a chance to re-purpose this infrastructure and remind us of what has been lost, to show two missing things complementing each other, falling in love again.
Davies Tang + Toews is an architecture and design firm based in Brooklyn. Our work includes residential, institutional and commercial projects, small inventions, and teaching. In May 2011, we designed and built Tentstop, in collaboration with the PARC Foundation. Seven custom canvas tents were constructed to describe and simulate camping in the city, housing site models, illustrative dioramas and a children’s working table for the deployment of playful cities within cities.