It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Toolshed

Installation

2023 — Built

Architectural Design, Creative Placemaking

It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Toolshed is a pavilion for displaying, retrieving, and animating a collection of loanable equipment from the Chicago Tool Library, a non-profit lending library of things based in Garfield Park that provides equitable access to tools, equipment, and information, allowing all Chicagoans to learn, share, and create. The installation consists of CNC-routed marine plywood ribs, shaped into a cocoon-like, welcoming enclosure. Colorful, reconfigurable shelves snap into the installation to create shapely nooks and crannies for storing tools and artifacts. The pavilion debuted at the 2023 Chicago Sukkah Design Festival, an annual public art and architecture exhibition of outdoor pavilions that celebrates cultural heritage in the North Lawndale neighborhood. After the conclusion of the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival, the installation is relocated and re-installed at the Chicago Tool Library’s headquarters in Garfield Park, where it facilitates a permanent tool demonstration station and scenic backdrop for instructional videos that feature items from the Chicago Tool Library’s inventory.

Design Team: Joseph Altshuler, Zack Morrison
Fabrication: Rainbolt Productions
Photography: Brian Griffin
Contribution to: Chicago Architecture Biennial, 5th edition
Support: Illinois Arts Council Agency