Gimme Shelter

Davide Tonizzo’s scheme satisfies both practical and esthetic concerns. The guts of the mailbox — front-facing, stacked in neat vertical columns — remain unchanged, but it’s all wrapped in a biomorphic shell with a slate of sensitivities built in: a posting board for community events, panels for community art projects and, significantly, a translucent shelter for those wet or snowy mail-retrieval nights, plus a solar-powered light so you can see what you’re collecting in the dark.