Library News, Reviews, and Views
Challenge: How to turn an ornately designed, inconveniently shaped basement into a sleek, technology-driven community space? This was the question that Bostwick Design Partnership faced when taking on the task of creating TechCentral, Cleveland Public Library’s new technology center on the lower level of the library’s downtown Louis Stokes Wing.
Surprising, stunning, outrageous even—that’s what teens asked for and hot in these library spaces.
Attendees of the annual American Library Association (ALA) conference in Anaheim, CA, this past June got an overview of stellar new library interior design when ALA’s Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA) and the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) announced the winners of the latest ALA/IIDA Library Interior Design Competition. The biennial awards honor excellence [...]
When creating special spaces where children can experience joy in learning and investigation, public and school libraries often are inclined to produce primary-colored themed spaces that may appear on the surface to be kid-friendly. These spaces, however, can be a flat experience for children. Children appreciate good design, subtlety, and nuance. We should avoid talking down to them with the spaces we provide just for them.
Sheridan Public Library, Arapahoe Library District CO Architect Humphries Poli Architects THE CHALLENGE Sheridan Public Library must leave its decades-long home in the local high school and construct a new building nearby. This new facility needs more room for teens as well as resources for the large Spanish-speaking and elderly constituencies, and the mandate for [...]
How do you plan for a future you can’t predict? By building flexibility into the design. That was one of the main takeaways from LJ’s latest Design Institute (DI), held at the Denver Central Library on May 4. The DI, LJ’s 12th in a series on trends in library design, was a one-day symposium composed of panels, presentations, and breakout sessions, featuring a mix of architects, vendors, and librarians.
Programs for the public have always been a staple of American library service. New needs brought on by an economic downturn, a shift to digital devices, and an onslaught of immigration have given library programs greater importance than ever in the array of offerings public libraries provide. The result has been development of new best practices to make library programs much more popular with the public and much more useful in providing things people want and need. [...]
When architecture firm GouldEvans participated in LJ’s Design Institute (DI) last year in Phoenix for the first time and took on the task of suggesting design ideas to Clark College’s Cannell Library in Vancouver, WA, Tony Rohr, principal at GouldEvans, asked himself, “How do we handle this?” The answer took the shape of a deck of cards referred to as the Idea Kit.
In fall 2009, Bing Thom Architects (BTA) won a stimulus grant from the Canadian government to build the new $36 million (Canadian), 77,000 square foot Surrey City Centre Library, envisioned as a centerpiece of this fast-growing community outside Vancouver, BC. The caveat: use it or lose it. In exchange for the funding, construction had to be finished in 18 months—half the usual time allowed for such a project. “We got the grant in November and started working in December,” says Michael Heeney, principal at the Vancouver-based BTA. “By February, we were under construction.” The accelerated schedule meant there was no time to conduct essential public meetings and focus groups to find out what the community wanted from their new library. BTA’s solution: use social media.
The goal of the new Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library in Washington, DC, which opened in January 2011, was to give neighborhood residents a “grand, well-lit, inviting” place—a “fantastic library where people would want to spend time,” says Kim Fuller, District of Columbia Public Library’s (DCPL) project manager, who oversaw the library’s construction.
INFOdocket by Gary Price
