To build a library with a hidden room themed like the setting of your book

Experiential Design

You’ve chosen to imagine a library with secret rooms that make your book’s setting feel real. You might want to learn more about experiential design, where stores and other spaces create places to explore, play, and discover. But if your book has dragons, maybe skip the fire-breathing section!

Fun Facts:

The LEGO flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York uses hands-on and digital activities to make shopping more playful. LEGO calls this idea “retailtainment.”
Daikanyama Tsutaya Books in Tokyo is designed around a “Library in the Woods” theme, with places to browse, eat, and relax.
The bookshop Shakespeare and Company opened in Paris opened in 1951 under the name Le Mistral. Founder George Whitman designed its rooms to feel like chapters in a book.

Experiential Design

LISTEN

Experiential design makes visiting a building part of the fun. We might play, explore, create, or relax while we are there. Some stores already give us experiences alongside the things they sell. Bookstores can use special spaces to make reading feel like an adventure. Our future library could take that idea even further. But if your book has dragons, maybe skip the fire-breathing section!

Fun Facts:

Shakespeare and Company opened under the name Le Mistral in Paris in 1951. Its founder designed the bookstore’s rooms to feel like chapters in a book.
Livraria Lello opened in Porto, Portugal, in 1906. Its dramatic staircase, stained glass, art, and architecture make the building itself part of visiting the bookstore.
Daikanyama Tsutaya Books in Tokyo has a café and lounges alongside its books. Visitors can even sit and read materials before buying them.
Dujiangyan Zhongshuge in China uses huge arches, mirrored ceilings, and reflections to transform its bookstore into an unusual visual experience. Its design was inspired by the mountains and rivers around Dujiangyan.
LEGO opened an experiential flagship store in New York City in 2021. It mixes shopping with digital and physical activities where visitors can play and create.

Discussion Question:

If stores or libraries become places for adventures, how do we make sure they remain accessible for everyone?

LISTEN

Physical Build:

Turn a shoebox into a tiny bookstore where visiting is an adventure. Use cardboard, paper, fabric, tape, and recycled materials to add one special experience, such as a secret room, building station, or story tunnel. Think about what visitors can do there instead of only what they can buy.

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Digital Build:

With an adult, ask ChatGPT:

“Invent a bookstore where every section has a different experience.”

Choose one of the ideas and redesign it your way. You can draw a floor plan, make a model, or invent an entirely different experience for visitors.

or a plushy chair pod that reads your book to you?

Reading Chair Pod

Smart Furniture

LISTEN

You’ve chosen to imagine a cozy chair pod that can read your book aloud while you relax. You might want to learn more about smart furniture, which builds useful technology right into everyday objects. Your chair can read the story, but you still get to pick the book!

Fun Facts:

Sound by Samuelson makes chairs where the chair itself works as a Bluetooth speaker for music, audiobooks, and other audio.
Furniture designer Vladimir Kagan once made armchairs with stereo speakers built into them.
Around 1750, British furniture makers were already making special chairs designed just for reading.

Smart Furniture

LISTEN

We use furniture every day for sitting, sleeping, working, and playing. Now, designers can build technology right into the furniture around us–in the form of smart furniture. A chair might play an audiobook through speakers hidden inside its body. Our future furniture could respond to what we need while staying comfortable. We should still decide when these smart features turn on or off. Your chair can read the story, but you still get to pick the book!

Fun Facts:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a British reading chair from about 1750. Special furniture for readers is hundreds of years old.
In the 1950s, designer Vladimir Kagan experimented with armchairs containing stereo speakers. People could sit down and hear sound directly from their seats.
Robotic furniture can move itself around a room. The Ori system grew from research at MIT and can reveal a hidden bed when it is time to sleep.
Sound by Samuelson now makes chairs that work as Bluetooth speakers. They can play audiobooks without separate visible speakers.
A PhD student at Louisiana State University created furniture with sensors and speakers inside that work together like musical instruments. The 2021 project was called Musical Chairs.

Discussion Question:

If furniture could listen and respond to us, what should it be allowed to know?

LISTEN

Physical Build:

Use a small box, cardboard, fabric scraps, cotton, and tape to design your own reading chair pod. Add pretend speakers, buttons, pockets, or adjustable parts. Decide which features would make reading more comfortable and which ones you would control yourself.

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Digital Build:

With an adult, ask ChatGPT:

“Invent a cozy reading chair with three helpful features for future readers.”

Then choose the features you like, change the ones you don’t, and draw or build your own version.