In August, Greenpoint Library & Environmental Education Center was highlighted by Shannon Mattern in a New York Daily News piece titled, “Long Live Public Libraries.” Throughout the article, she discusses the importance and relevance of libraries in offering community support and promoting intellectual growth, which was amplified during the pandemic. She also notes that the physical space of a public library can aid in realizing the larger context of public responsibility by providing access to information. As the Greenpoint Library’s physical location closely ties its function, Shannon emphasizes the library’s programming, noting: “This library, like many others, works with its community to confront difficult histories, to acknowledge injustices, to celebrate resilience, and to imagine processes of remediation. The work that takes place here can repair the physical and social worlds around it.”
Over the summer, Marble Fairbanks moved our office location from DUMBO to Flatiron. We are grateful to have our team back together working in-person and for the return of client meetings in our new space. If you haven’t already stopped by, please come visit us at our new location or join us for lunch in Madison Square Park.
The 2020 SARA NY Design Awards recognized the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture with the NY Design Award of Merit. The annual award recognizes design excellence across a variety of projects from around the world in several categories spanning innovation, excellence, honor, and merit. Read more about the awards here.
We recently kicked off an Enhanced Feasibility Study for the Springfield Armory National Historic Site to help rethink museum collection storage. Springfield Armory was the nation’s first armory and serves as a visitor’s center and museum that interprets and preserves, “the world’s largest historic US military small arms collection, along with historic archives, buildings, and landscapes.” This study is an extension of the MFA’s work with the GSA and Interior Region 1 of the National Park Service to improve museum collection storage facilities throughout the region and conserve, preserve and protect historic artifacts for generations to come.
Advanced Architectural Research and Design, Karen’s spring semester design studio, explores design at the intersection of architecture, youth, activism and justice in the built environment. This immersive studio for Barnard and Columbia Architecture majors in their senior year is working with two unique New York organizations, and Marble Fairbanks’ partners, FC Harlem and Girl Be Heard. Through an inclusive design process between B+C Architecture students, the youth and the directors of these organizations, students are developing projects that explore how architecture and design and can support the organization’s needs, amplify the voices of their youth, strengthen their communities and envision new opportunities to empower youth today and in the future.
Image Courtesy of FC Harlem / Royce Paris / AndThem and Girl Be Heard