MFA Presents a Mass Timber Public Library at Mass Timber+

On Wednesday, October 7, Marble Fairbanks Director Jason Roberts presented the Brooklyn Public Library’s New Lots Branch, a mass timber public library in New York City, at the Mass Timber+ Conference in Philadelphia. Jason shared the stage with Chris Hardy of MASS and Maya Stuhlbarg of TYLin.

The session paired New Lots with KieranTimberlake’s Penn’s Landing Pavilion, another civic mass timber project. Together, the presenters explored what it takes to bring a mass timber building to the public, from design and engineering to procurement, approvals, and construction. Each of those steps shapes whether a public client can turn an ambitious material choice into a building its community can use.

For our team, New Lots has been an opportunity to test how mass timber can support ambitious civic architecture while navigating the realities of delivering a public project in New York City. Jason brought those lessons to Philadelphia, along with a question at the center of the session: how projects like New Lots and Penn’s Landing can help expand the use of mass timber in public architecture.

The conversation reflects work we have pursued for over three decades, designing public libraries, civic buildings, and cultural spaces with communities across the New York region. To see how mass timber is shaping the new branch, visit our New Lots Branch project page, or explore more of our public library work.