Design Study
Mark Rakatansky Studio with Aaron White design a Little Free Library
An open-source design for Little Free Library/NYC
Design Team: Mark Rakatansky Studio with Aaron White
Community Partner: University Settlement
The library today is the new civic center: to bring that civic mode out into the city — right there on the sidewalk with you — engages new interactions between fellow readers. In 1905, the University Settlement’s collection of 6,500 books inaugurated the collection of the Carnegie “Free to All” Library next door at 61 Rivington Street. In 2013, our Little Free Library returns and redistributes the favor, using what is usually the barrier of the urban fence to keep others out as a way now to be able to reach into and out from, in a civic redistribution of the borders of what is public.
Mark Rakatansky is Principal of Mark Rakatansky Studio and teaches at Columbia University, Pratt Institute, and Parsons The New School for Design. Aaron White is Associate at Mark Rakatansky Studio and teaches at Pratt Institute and Parsons The New School for Design.