Free_lil_electric_libraries
Electriquette - give electrification a local dimension
A charging station is a piece of infrastructure. It is placed by utilities or municipalities or commercial operators. It has no relationship to the place it occupies.
Free Little Electric Libraries proposes a different kind of electrification artifact: one built by the people who live on the block, that charges cars and plays music and makes bubbles and invites the neighbors to stop.
The design is deliberately low-tech. An outdoor outlet. An extension cord. Two-by-fours. Swappable modules — a music box, a kaleidoscope, a paper piano — built from open-source blueprints anyone can print and assemble.
Our design proposal probes how to give electrification a local dimension seeking alternative experiential narratives, alternative to last century-tech language of fuse boxes with no relationship to their social or environmental context.
They’re DIY toolkit made of commonly available materials: outdoor outlet, standard outdoor extension cord, couple of 2x4s, and swappable “interactive modules” in ready to assemble elements. Modules include music box and kaleidoscope (manual), bubbles machine and paper piano (electronic), etc. All blueprints and materials are open-sourced published on tinkering platforms and can order online. Grassroots customization are welcomed.
What if EV charging infrastructure were designed by the community it serves, rather than installed for it?
The name borrows from the Free Little Library movement, which succeeded partly because it turned a solitary act (reading) into a gesture of sharing. This does the same for charging: a private driveway outlet becomes a public resource, and a public resource becomes a reason to talk.
The project is part of the Electriquette framework and makes a specific argument about adoption: that electrification does not have to arrive as infrastructure imposed on a neighborhood. It can arrive as something a neighborhood makes for itself — visible, personal, playful, and belonging to the people who built it.
Free_lil_electric_libraries aim to inspire conversation about techno-social activism, initiatives that re-connect people, re-connect people with places where they live, and invite disarming forms of relational encounters, transient collaboration and mutual trust.
These libraries are individual charging stations in front of the builder’s house, acting as instigators endowed with social & personal values while having goals of positive interaction.
These electrified objects are tied to mobilizing our innate playful intention to foster transient relationships and community of place.
Free_lil_electric_libraries signal an alternative to the exclusivity of current sparse charging stations and invite us to engage in imagining how things could be, when we could have a voice and actively participate in shaping how technological change affects our space and our relationships.