Brooklyn Heights Public Library
The new Brooklyn Heights Public Library branch opened as the second-largest Library in the NYC system. It comprises 26,000 square feet of space designed to serve the community’s youngest to oldest members, including public meeting spaces, reading rooms for children and teens, and lots of space to browse, read, and create.
The overall design, created by Gensler, included a children’s Library as a playful and functional space. The design called for brightly colored modular furniture, cork walls, and a ceiling dotted with “floating” white glass globe of light to provide reading and ambient illumination.
The Cosentini Design team led the specification of lighting for the children’s space and set the parameters for several specific needs. The fixtures were to be performance-level LEDs with strict binning constraints to maintain color consistency through out the space. Pendants needed to be suspended from rigid stems due to their proximity to HVAC vents to minimize movement.
Cosentini turned to Fabbian’s Lumi Sfera LED pendant collection. Lumi Sfera’s 14-inch pendants were just the right size, light source, and aesthetic for the project, and their invisible hardware helped fulfill the vision of glowing globes of light. The Fabbian team worked with Cosentini to develop a rigid suspension system to ensure the pendants would remain stationary, be easy to install, and offer some in-field adjustment capabilities for the contractors. Once the mechanics were determined, designers worked on the finish of the stems to have them blend into the background of the ceiling. The result was modified Lumi Sfera pendants with rigid stem suspension in a white-painted finish. The pendants were easily installed at varying heights to emphasize the design’s playfulness and fulfill the design vision.
Fabbian’s custom capabilities, from product modifications to bespoke installations, were instrumental in bringing the design vision to life. Their collaboration with Cosentini ‘s design team underscores their value as an effective design partner and succeeded in delivering in all the details of the original concept envisioned by Gensler Design.
Photograph by Gregg Richards, Courtesy of Brooklyn Public Library
