PROJECT REPORT: CULTURAL, CIVIC & FAITH BUILDINGS
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© John Bartelstone
© John Bartelstone
‘nook’ spaces with special acoustic treatment provide more privacy for children to read away from the more social areas if needed. A further internal glazed partition enables kids to drop books and view a sorting machine grab and process them. Liz Leber says that there are some key interior design aspects which bestow particular qualities to each area to increase library use. “The technology enhancements in the Teens’ area, the pops of colour in the Children’s area, the professional atmosphere of the Business Library and Adult Learning Centre – these are what we hope will attract New Yorkers and visitors to come and enjoy the many services that SNFL provides.”
A new outdoor space in NYC The roof terrace has had a series of major interventions, beyond elevating the floor level so that users can look over the parapet at the stunning views along 5th Avenue. The addition of the ‘Wizard’s Hat’ in green-painted aluminium adds greater presence in the streetscape, conceals plant, and ties in with the metal roofs or ‘chapeaux’ of several historic buildings nearby. Some are in the Beaux-Arts style, like the adjacent SASB, such as one visible from the new roof terrace. Lights placed along the edge of the overhanging canopy give the roof a decorative touch that further echoes Beaux-Arts design.
ADF DECEMBER 2021 The ‘Hat’ covers three connectable lecture
rooms, plus an events space and cafe. The canopy protects users from the cold but also heat that can challenge New Yorkers, despite the delights of this new, publicly accessible outdoor space in the heart of Manhattan. With the final touch of a sunken ‘secret garden’ on the original roof level, Houben says, “now everyone wants to get married here!”
Reactions
Houben reports that the clients and users are pleased with what the architects designed to be a “timeless building.” It subtly emulates the SASB (one of the city’s most popular public buildings), using materials like oak and terrazzo, and while the facade has been renovated, and windows renewed, the original 5th Avenue entrance has been kept.
Houben adds that bringing in Mecanoo
was a “big risk,” for the city – “why use an architect from abroad?” But in solving the riddle of excavating substantial space from the plan – while housing all the books previously crammed into the structure – and not breaking the envelope, she says: “I thought we really brought something from the Netherlands to New York.” Houben concludes: “Sometimes libraries can be about who makes the craziest building; I think we just made a good building.”
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
© John Bartelstone
The key idea for this 60 metre long space was to still make it ‘browsable by hand,’ despite housing a high volume of books
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