Project Description
In the culinary world, ‘nose-to-tail’ refers to a practice in which the whole animal is used, without discarding the parts that are typically considered waste. In Tripe, the leftovers from the production of thirty-six reading stools are used for the storage of books. Additional cuts are made for seven waterproof book boxes containing over 200 books that circulate around Buffalo’s Riverside neighborhood, as well as slots for the storage of the stools themselves, which can be reinserted in the screen when not in use. The cut-outs are registered by a gradient of offset lines translating from one shape to the next, created by the same CNC milling process used to extract the shapes. While the typical mini-library is simply a container for books, CODA—believing that a library is more than just shelves—designed bookcases, seats, and space to read together. Additionally, the planting boxes extant on the site are echoed in the project, growing red tulips as a bookend to the garden’s productive landscape. Part reading room, part bookstack, and part stage, Tripe is located in The Esser Street Garden, a community garden at the corner of Esser and Henrietta streets in Riverside, Buffalo, NY.