VAN ALEN BOOKS
LOT-EK was commissioned by the Van Alen Institute: Projects in Public Architecture to conceive and design VAN ALEN BOOKS, a new architecture and design bookstore and public reading room located at the organization’s headquarters in Manhattan’s Flatiron District.
Van Alen Books is motivated by an urgent need for spaces where architecture books can be discovered and discussed.
Inviting the public to linger and browse, the store features a 14-foot-tall seating platform crafted from a stack of 70 recycled doors, which ascend to create an amphitheater overlooking 22nd Street through glazed storefront windows. Sourced from Build It Green! NYC, a nonprofit supplier of salvaged building materials, the solid wood doors form a triangular installation evoking the steps of Times Square’s TKTS booth, an iconic project originated through Van Alen Institute’s 1999 design competition.
This highly visible storefront space will be New York City’s only book emporium and gathering place devoted singularly to architecture and design publications and an open platform to discuss the future of the architecture book.
CREDITS / DATA
Building Type: Retail, Cultural
Design: LOT-EK, Ada Tolla + Giuseppe Lignano, Principals, Sara Valente, Project Architect
Commission: Van Alen Institute - Olympia Kazi, Director
Location: 30 W. 22nd Street, New York, NY
Size: 355 SF / 505 SF usable
Design: 2010
Completion: 2011
Consultants: Structural Engineer: Robert Silman Associates, Nat Oppenheimer, Principal, Justin Den Herder, Project Engineer
General Contractor: Craft Workshop, Andreas Scholtz
Photography: Danny Bright
Awards: 2012 NCSEA Excellence in Structural Engineering Awards
