Library News, Reviews, and Views
This year’s 107 completed public library building projects—completed between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012—display innovative design in partnership with the community and in reference to the past. The data expands to include other costs, storage capacity, and revenue sources, along with our comparative six-year summary. And imagine the ideas you will glean from these galleries of beautiful and striking images. The future is here!
The East New Orleans Regional Library is one of four new branches replacing those lost to Hurricane Katrina. Going for sustainability, it features fixed exterior sun screens, reflective white surface roofing, dark-sky exterior lights, and low-E tinted windows. CREDITS: Gould Evans Affiliates, P.A., architect; photo, Michael Palumbo. The trifecta of library spaces is provided by [...]
The West Jordan Library & Viridian Event Center, Salt Lake County Library, is the perfect convergence of civic and recreational needs. The design captures the outdoors as flexible event space, with no need to add enclosed program areas. CREDITS: MHTN Architects, Inc., architect; photo, Trevor Muhler Photography. The new Walpole Public Library, MA, more than [...]
Artwork from Ashley Bryan’s book Let It Shine brightens the Play, Learn and Grow children’s area at the new Warrensville Heights Branch, Cuyahoga County Public Library, OH. Activity stations help to foster early literacy skills. CREDITS: HBM Architects, architect; photo, Kevin G. Reeves Photography. The remodeled and expanded Loveland Public Library, CO, has already achieved [...]
The new Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood Library of DCPL features a reflective mosaic of diamond-shaped windows that inside alternates transparent windows with wood panels for expansive views. CREDITS: Wiencek & Associates in Partnership with Adjaye Associates, architect; photo, ©Eric Taylor, EricTaylorPhoto.com. The remodeled West Boynton Beach Branch, Palm Beach County Library System, FL, offers computers [...]
The new Wilson S. Rivers Library & Media Center at Florida Gateway College, Lake City, was designed to be environmentally friendly while incorporating archival, leisure, and community functions along with individual and group study. CREDITS: Harvard Jolly Architecture, architect and photo. Combining a Learning Commons and a 20,000 square foot renovation at the Patricia W. [...]
A factory-constructed modular system forms the new Fife Library, Pierce County Library System, WA. Digitally fabricated, track-based divider panels bearing a custom pattern separate the library spaces from community areas available for public functions. CREDITS: SHKS Architects, architect; photo, ©2011 Benjamin Benschneider. The remodeled Main Library, Central Arkansas Library System, in Little Rock, includes new [...]
Interconnections of learning and living are the key to the flexibility of the new 15,500 square foot Commons at the Richard J. Daley Library, University of Illinois at Chicago. CREDITS: David Woodhouse Architects, architect; photo, Christopher Barrett. A grey limestone exterior mixed with iron-spot brick on the American Bureau of Shipping Information Commons at Massachusetts [...]
The new 115,000 square foot Russell Special Collections Libraries Building at the University of Georgia, Athens, offers exhibit space for its three main special collections and event space with a 3,300 square foot banquet room, along with a glorious central rotunda. CREDITS: Collins Cooper Carusi, architect; photo, Kieran Reynolds Photography. Kids have all the fun [...]
For the Year in Architecture 2012, Library Journal solicited information from academic libraries nationwide that had undergone new builds and renovation/addition projects completed between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012. The tables below comprise complete financial and construction statistics for the 19 academic library buildings submitted.
INFOdocket by Gary Price
