instructional booklet

Leimert Park Community Fridge

Name: Fridge Video Revised 110322
Uploaded: 2025-09-30T00:35:57.651Z
Duration: PT3M0.89S
Description: Leimert Park Community Fridge

The Leimert Park Community Fridge Instructional Booklet is a free, downloadable resource that shares the full design for a modular, low-cost structure built to support neighborhood fridges. It includes a detailed supply list, material cost breakdown, and three sizing options to make replication simple and adaptable in other communities.

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Building tools for solidarity and shared care

EYRC teamed up with the nonprofit organization Leimert Park Community Fridge (LAFC), a subset of LA Community Fridges, to design and build a structure that could better support an existing community refrigerator.

Working closely with organizers, the team identified the need for weather protection, additional dry goods storage, and a more resilient setup to serve the neighborhood. The resulting structure provided 85 sf of secure storage for food and toiletries while sheltering appliances from the elements. Designed for flexibility and ease of assembly, it uses affordable materials, basic tools, and minimal waste by cutting components from standard 4x8 plywood sheets. Within weeks of installation, local artists painted its surfaces with vibrant colors, turning a practical resource into a celebrated expression of community care and creativity.

EYRC's Design Justice Committee

In September 2020, members of EYRC’s newly established Design Justice Committee came across an announcement on Instagram, calling for volunteers to help construct protective shelters for the Los Angeles Community Fridges. Seeing this as a unique opportunity to apply our skills as designers and builders to a cause very much aligned with our core values, we undertook the project from design to construction to installation within a span of a couple months. The completed fridge structure now stands in the heart of Leimert Park, where it provides a sheltered space for people to share free food and supplies with their community daily.

To actively promote a more equitable and diverse profession, we must address our complicity and culpability head on, which begins by unraveling our own unconscious biases.