Matthew Fries, Jeanette Degollado, and Julian Luna created TréPhonos – payphones that have been turned into sculptures that play snippets of spoken history, music, and ambient field recordings captured at significant locations in the neighborhood.

This incredible project was done with Project Row Houses, a Houston arts organization.  Each of the TréPhonos uses a Teensy 3.6, an Audio Adapter Board, and a 20W audio amplifier. They run on solar power and  have custom 3D printed parts for the Teensy and other components to mount to the interior of the payphones. Whenever you pick up the handset the phone begins playing instructions. Whenever you press one of the buttons #1-9 the phones will play either a song, story, or sound form the neighborhood Third Ward where they are installed. When you hold * whatever you say is recorded into the handset and can be played back by pressing 0. # plays information about the project. The Change Return slot conceals an Easter Egg switch.