NYPL Fort Washington
Reading Room
The Fort Washington Branch Children’s Room is located on the second floor of a four-story structure built in 1914 with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie.
The library was last renovated in the 1950s. The 2,500-square-foot space has an 18 ft ceiling and original casework, with built-in window seats that adorn three perimeter walls.
Our approach was to scale down the voluminous room by creating individual reading and activity areas called ‘reading gardens.’ This was achieved by designing an array of large lamp shades hung from the existing ceiling that define autonomous spaces and provide up-lighting for the entire room. Each reading garden was given a unique, playful character through a graphic applied to the lampshades above and woven into the area rugs below. Our office generated all graphics by collaging the NYPL image archive images. Work also included selecting and arranging new furniture, shelving, and color palettes.
The Fort Washington Branch was honored as “Interior of Interest to the Public Realm” during the 2007 AIA New York City Design Awards and again in 2009 in the AIA New York State Design Awards, Building of the Day, Archtober 2011.
