This is the third installment of a weekly blog hosted at Brownstoner chronicling the design and construction of Greenlight Bookstore at 686 Fulton Street in Fort Greene. Written by project architect Frederick Tang of deFT Projects.

Millwork (a.k.a. finish carpentry, casework) is one of the most design-intensive components of any project—this is especially true for a bookstore! There are four primary pieces of millwork in our design: (1) the perimeter shelving (which will hold the majority of the books; (2) a central display piece surrounding the air shaft; (3) the cash wrap and register; (4) the storefront display and bench.

This week, we’ll take a look at the perimeter shelving which is by far the most extensive piece of millwork in the project…

greenlight-floorplan-081409.jpgAs soon as we saw the existing plan, we knew that the funky geometries of the space were going to create some challenges for the millwork details. We looked into using a company like Franklin Fixtures which provides standard millwork and display pieces for retail environments. Their price and quality was good, but ultimately we decided that given the strangeness of our space, we needed more control over all of the details. We decided to find a local millworker who could provide an entirely custom solution at a similar price. After talking to a couple of Brooklyn-based wood workers and bidding out a set of details, we settled on Iris Lasn, a local artist with a lot of experience working with wood.

Although shelving may seem like a relatively basic component (a shelf is a shelf is a shelf), there are lots of detail-intensive decisions to be made. In a space with so many nooks and crannies, ins and outs, we felt that it was important for the perimeter shelving to establish a hard datum line that was consistent throughout—a horizon line of sorts. Originally we had intended to recess all the shelves behind a drywall soffitt so that the shelves would appear carved into the walls, but because the tops of the shelves needed to be accessible for storage and lighting, this was impractical.

glb3_081409.jpgOne of the details we discussed extensively was whether to articulate each case as its own entity with a slight reveal between vertical members. Ultimately, we decided to treat the entire front surface of the shelving as a single flush plane with all of the shelves recessed into it so that the front surface acts like a frame. Here you can see a detail showing the shelves set back from the frame about two inches.

Another hot topic was the dimensions of the headers and footers. The existing subfloor is far from level, so the base footer needed to accommodate a certain degree of waviness in the floor. We detailed the shelving so that the base piece could be scribed on site once the shelves were installed. We felt that the header piece needed to be more substantial so that there was a strong horizontal element throughout the entire store. This header also needed to conceal strip lights that will uplight the ceiling and the faces of them needed to be tall enough to hold a “section header” sign comfortably.

glb5_081409.jpgIn terms of material palette, we felt that to emphasize the light quality of the storefront and maintain airiness throughout the store, we should stay in a lighter tonal range. We’re going with maple for the flooring and the perimeter millwork.

Iris built a mock-up so we could review all the details and dimensions in the space itself and look at the finish. We’re happy with the mock-up and moving ahead with the fabrication.

Next Week: Lights!


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