WORKac: We'll Get There When We Cross That Bridge by Amale Andraos, Dan Wood
The Monacelli Press, 2017
Hardcover, 360 pages

Amale Andraos and Dan Wood started WORKac in 2003 after both worked at OMA. They are celebrating fifteen years with this monograph, its title a play on the familiar phrase, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." The title flip-flop, combined with the way the text snakes itself across the edge of the cover around "WORKac," hints at the firm's sense of humor, the playful nature of their work, and the way the duo upends conventions. The neon orange, green and pink lettering also alludes to the structure of the book: five-year chunks that hinge upon global events circa 2008 ("post-housing bubble") and 2013 ("post-oil-price crash") but also correspond with happenings in the office and in the life of the married partners (notably children and a deanship). These five year chunks also give Andraos and Wood the opportunity to revisit a project that took up two-thirds of WORKac's existence to date: the Kew Gardens Hills Library in Queens, which they were commissioned for in 2007 but didn't open until 2017; in fact the photos at the end of the book document the completed building before books were moved in and people started using the library.
[Kew Gardens Hills Library, Queens | Photos: John Hill]

Even though Kew Gardens Hills Library is in the borough I call home and has therefore been a project I have posted...