Responses by Giorgia Lupi, partner, Pentagram.
Background: Installed in a newly renovated space within the Glenn G. Bartle Library at SUNY Binghamton, partner Giorgia Lupi’s team at Pentagram transformed 200 of the library’s most borrowed books, journals, theses and special collections, among other assets, into a data-driven installation: a gridded field of colorful extruded tiles, displayed chronologically across the wall and clustered into related groups.
Across the room, a companion interactive wall invites students to respond to prompts about reading habits, privacy and the future of knowledge using magnets that are color-coded by major. As more students contribute, the wall builds into an evolving, community-shaped visualization. Together, the two installations celebrate Binghamton’s collections and the expert faculty and staff behind them, and they express the ever-changing relationship between students and the knowledge they seek.
Design core: Each tile carries a custom pattern drawn from textures and architectural details scanned throughout Bartle Library, turning the building’s own materials into a visual vocabulary for different subject areas. Shape distinguishes physical from digital items, color and dot patterns identify each item’s home library and related majors, and line weight tracks total borrowings—a distinct graphic language derived from Binghamton’s own materials that runs across the whole installation.
The project grew out of an on-site research trip, where the team observed how books are mended in the repair room, wandered the stacks and studied materials in Special Collections, looking for a way to reflect not just what the library holds but the care and movement that define it.
Challenges: Initially, we planned to utilize a large amount of qualitative and quantitative data in our work to represent lending history and illuminate the underlying structures powering Bartle Library. When we realized existing records were more limited, we came up with the idea to showcase borrowing patterns and their macroaffiliations, using scans from the collection itself, and making the materials in the library the primary visual element.
Favorite details: A visitor can discover something new every time they walk past. The surprising connections between a person’s area of study and their reading make visible the interdisciplinary nature of Binghamton and the complexity of the work produced there.
We also love that the interactive companion wall provides an entry point for those who use the library to reflect on their own reading and borrowing habits, as well as all the resources and dedicated staff at their disposal.
Visual influences: After our site visit, we thought a lot about the materiality of the special collections and book mending room, and how to leverage the physical appearance of the collection itself. We wanted to honor the beauty of the most borrowed objects and Bartle Library itself—a brutalist landmark and academic heart of the university.
Specific project demands: Bartle itself is architecturally significant, but the room slated for the installation was large and somewhat sterile, presenting a unique spatial challenge for the team. The completed installation brought dimensionality, color and warmth to the space.
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