Team
You can find us on Twitter @LeimertPhoneCo and on Facebook here.
Our participatory design collaborative aims to re-invent the payphone (and other urban objects) as a portal to local culture, local history, and to build community.
We formed in 2013 to redesign a phonebooth in the historic African American neighborhood of Leimert Park. Based in Los Angeles with collaborators worldwide, we have 10+ core members, including hardware hackers, storytellers and game designers; we are a mix of Leimert Park community members and University faculty and students.
Direction and Facilitation
- KAOS Network: Ben Caldwell (and from LA Rebellion)
- University Partners: François Bar (USC Annenberg), Benjamin Stokes (American University), Karl Baumann (USC Cinematic Arts)
Fabrication Leads
- Andrew Schrock
- Wesley Groves
- Rudy Rude
Team and Participants
- Alex Leavitt
- Charmaine Asril Lee
- Chi Zhang
- Chris Swiatek
- Drew Roos
- Dominique Ulloa
- Eddie North-Hager
- Emily Molina
- Eleanor Wright
- George Carstocea
- Janet E. Dandridge
- John Wall
- Kara Andrade
- Kevin Driscoll
- Lana Swartz
- Leila Dougan
- Lena Uszkoreit
- Marcia Allison
- Marie Sullivan
- Melissa Loudon
- Meryl Alper
- Minkah Smith
- Nicholas Busalacchi
- Nicolas Kendall-Bar
- Patrice Fisher
- Paul Cheatham
- R. Taj Frazier
- Rook Campbell
- Sabelo Mhlambi
- Samantha Close
- Sasha Anawalt
- Substance
- Tim Huang
- Uhura
- Wo’se KOfi
Special Thanks
- Dean Ernest J. Wilson, USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
- Jonathan Aronson, Director of the Annenberg Experimental School, the venue for our studio
- Jeff Watson, guest game designer from USC Cinema
- Brenda Shockley, guest adviser, Crenshaw BID manager; Community Build
- Annenberg Innovation Lab
- Metamorphosis Research Team, and the MetaConnects initiative
- Mick M., who sold us the used payphones on eBay
- Shane Reilly, of reillyworks.com, who taught us to weld
- Rob, at Payphone411.com, a treasure trove of useful information
