Daily tous les jours, the provocative Montréal-based art and design studio founded by Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat, is pleased to announce the publication of their first book, Strangers Need Strange Moments Together: Designing Interaction for Public Spaces. Part manifesto, part monograph, part research archive, Strangers Need Strange Moments Together offers a look back at some of the practice’s most transformative urban projects, lending insight into Daily tous les jours’ thinking, process, community outreach efforts, and more. Through this retrospective of 15 years of Daily tous les jours’ interventions, Strangers Need Strange Moments Together makes the case for citizens to play a more active and participatory role in shaping their cities at a critical juncture in history.
For over 15 years, the Montréal-based studio Daily tous les jours has invited people into playful, poetic acts of connection through interactive public artworks that use music, movement, and storytelling to bridge the space between strangers. Now, with the release of their first book Strangers Need Strange Moments Together: Designing Interaction for Public Spaces, founders Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat offer a look inside the studio’s process and purpose—and an urgent invitation to reimagine the role of public space.
Published by Set Margins’, the book is part monograph, part manifesto, and part field guide. Across 238 pages, Andraos and Mongiat share reflections, case studies, and core questions that have shaped Daily tous les jours’ practice. It’s a book “written in the spirit of ‘we,’” they explain—“we” as the general public, and “we,” the Daily tous les jours team imagining new ways of living together
“We crave environments that nourish and support us,” they write. “We dream of places to go through life together, inclusively and tolerantly. Can we re-enchant the raw material of our collective daily experiences?”
That question drives the studio’s work in more than 60 cities, with projects like Musical Swings, Bloc Jam, and Musical Shadows transforming sidewalks and plazas into stages for social play. These site-specific installations are not just artworks—they’re what the studio calls “infrastructure for the human spirit,” blending placemaking, performance, and interactive technology in ways that resist the homogeneity of the modern city.
“There is so much technology trying to connect us these days, yet overwhelmingly it is doing the exact opposite,” says Mongiat. “Someone on the other side of the street might as well be on the other side of the world. We believe we need experiences that connect us in the flesh.”
In a time of polarization, automation, and loneliness, Daily tous les jours’ work reminds us that enchantment is not a luxury—it’s essential. Their design philosophy is deeply humanist, insisting that cities be shaped not just by data and efficiency, but by joy, wasteful time, and the unexpected.
“It may feel strange to smile, dance, or make music with a stranger these days,” the authors write. “But connecting with others through joy… is a proposition we need for the survival of what’s left of our humanity.”
Their work draws praise across disciplines. “Mouna and Melissa have invented their own discipline,” says Bruce Mau. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer calls them “makers of beautiful public experiences… placemaking in the most vital sense.”
Whether you're an artist, designer, planner, or engaged citizen, Strangers Need Strange Moments Together offers not just ideas, but tools—rooted in the belief that public space can (and must) support connection, care, and creativity.
In celebration of the release, Daily tous les jours will be hosting a series of launch events in Los Angeles, Montréal, Copenhagen, and New York City. Andraos and Mongiat will also host a podcast featuring dialogue with leading thinkers in design and urbanism, with each episode focused on themes from the book’s chapters. The first 25-minute episode will release June 2.
Preorders of the book are available through ArtBook/DAP and the Set Margins’ website.
For media inquiries regarding Daily tous les jours or questions about the publication, contact Meggie Sullivan meggie@bigmess.biz or Lila Allen lila@bigmess.biz.