The client needed a low-cost scheme to improve the operations of this small store, including providing a room that could be used for both a reading area and conference room, and a separate shipping and handling area. The budget for the project for this not-for-profit store was minimal.

Although the "artist's book", published or created as an edition, is a relatively recent phenomenon, the store had already amassed a large number of books that fall into this category. Printed Matter also carries periodicals, collections, and critical material.

The design is conceived as an installation with minimal alteration of the existing space and is primarily made up of steel shelving jacketed with hinged, painted plywood display ledges that lift up to reveal the stock behind.

New material is located on the white-painted shelves, similar to how works of art would typically be displayed within a gallery setting. Older works are in the stacks opposite, with the interpretive category of periodicals, collections, and criticism on the image-covered shelves between.

This relationship, which clearly delineates the different categories of printed material within the store, also serves to represent the influence of the past on art and the artist, both as a direct reference and through interpretive or synthesized material. The image-covered shelves support the light-booms that illuminate both old and new. The imnate both old and new. The images on these shelves will be "refreshed" regularly by artists associated with the store while shelves for new books will always remain white.

(With Daniel H. Wheeler)

This project was a recipient of a 1986 New York State Council on the Arts Grant, and received a Special Commendation from the 1986 Young Architect's Forum of The Architectural League of New York.