Red Telephone Boxes
We’ve got used to transforming all sorts of strange spaces over the years, but Temperance Hospital presented a unique problem. What to use the 3x3 cleaning cupboards for? There are two on each floor, after all.
Anyway, It got us thinking about the similar-sized OG red telephone box (excellent Wikipedia page), designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, and which used to be a familiar sight on the Great British High Street.
From reverse charge calls to life-changing calls and prank calls — from sheltering from wind and rain, sharing a kiss, the smell of piss — everyone has a particular memory of phone booths.
Across the UK, thousands have been sold off since the mid-1980s to private buyers, as well as to local communities under BT’s “Adopt a Kiosk” scheme. As a result, some have been reused as miniature libraries, cafes, information centres or galleries.
Their numbers have diminished since mobile phones came about, but their usefulness hasn’t been affected… So we decided to create our own.
Actually we commissioned Collective Member, Illustrator and Muralist, Nathan Evans, to paint them. So Collective Members can use when they take (long or loud) phone calls from the main co-working spaces of Temperance Hospital.
Want your own?
