American Bible Society

LocationNew York City
Year2015
TypologyCulture
Danny Forster & Architecture

A STRATEGY TO STAY

Sometimes the answer to “sell” or “stay” is both. That’s what DF&A realized when it considered the quandary of the American Bible Society. The ABS had been distributing Christian Bibles from its Manhattan headquarters for 200 years, during which time changes in zoning and the growth of the real estate market made its site near Columbus Circle a potential gold mine. But the nonprofit wanted to stay in the heart of the city to spread God’s word to those who arguably needed it the most. So DF&A designed a strategy that allowed them to sell and stay. 
 
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture

Because the American Bible Society building serves as a museum, a library, and the headquarters for a major nonprofit institution, it requires a sense of light, spaciousness, welcome, and grandeur, but not necessarily expansive floor space. So DF&A redesigned the headquarters using a strategy of atrium displacement, in which a technically smaller, but grander ABS below--with three atria and two enticing entrances--supported a luxury hotel above. 

Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture
Danny Forster & Architecture