Shakespeare & Co. began as an iconic Manhattan bookstore founded in 1983. Its store at 939 Lexington Avenue, adjacent to the Hunter College campus, has been a staple on the Upper East Side for over 20 years.
EP Engineering has designed three locations in NYC for Shakespeare & Co. The modern Shakespeare & Co. retail store includes a high-quality café and the patented Espresso Book Machine technology, which can produce on-site bookstore-quality books in minutes from a catalog of over 7,000,000 in-copyright and public domain titles.
Shakespeare & Co. Multiple Locations in NYC
Engineering challenges
- While quickly expanding their network of locations, Shakespeare & Co. strived to be efficient with time and cost spent on their renovations. The biggest challenge of these MEP designs was to meet Hive & Colony’s aesthetic expectations, while utilizing existing systems as much as possible.
Engineering outcomes
- During the design phase, we visited the site often to meticulously document existing conditions. This allowed us to design around these systems and re-utilize them where possible. Once construction started, we worked closely with contractors to solve any issues that were revealed as construction progressed. By providing extra attention to existing site conditions, we were able to keep the projects within budget, and still meet Shakespeare & Co.’s expectations for the MEP systems.