Though I've always loved libraries for all the wonderful books they contain, I've never really encountered any that contain many examples of modern or sustainable design. It feels a bit weird to say, but one new library in Austin is full of inspiration with neat modern ideas and sustainable features.
The new 10,000 square feet Twin Oaks Library in South Austin was built to meet the needs of the changing neighborhood, which has a lot of schools and growing families with kids. A diverse area, the library also had to satisfy a range of different users with different personalities. Luckily architecture firm Hatch + Ulland Owen Architects, interior design firm Laurie Smith Design Associates and City of Austin Library Facilities Construction Manager John Gillum were up for the challenge.
Built on the site of a former post office, the structure has tons of sustainable features like large wood trusses of reclaimed Douglas Fir, some of the bricks from the original post office reused, recycled or recyclable furnishings and low-VOC paint. An application for LEED certification is in the works.
Though the space has a lot of neat elements that are great for the community like walls of computers and outdoor community spaces with WIFI that can be used even when the library is closed, we of course are most interested in the fun interior aesthetics. Patterns and colors are mixed and varied, but it's the details that have us swooning, especially the modular book display systems custom built for the library.
A sculptural display fixture sketched out by Laurie Smith Design Associates and built and installed by local neighborhood resident Ed Barbee pro-bono spices up the main entrance area with custom-colored light-transmitting resin. The same bold and bright resin panels were utilized for custom-designed, four-square steel, maple & resin book display cubbies located on structural columns. You can also see the resin used in a neat kid-scaled, "crooked-house" portal that leads to the kids' area (and that we sort of wish we had in our own house somewhere). Even the interior signage is fun and modern, and a great typewriter mobile art piece ("Black Well" by Stephanie Strange) sets the creative tone to the space.
Are there any libraries near you or that you've seen that inspire you? Have you ever borrowed an interior idea for your own home from something you saw in a library? Let us know!
(Photos: Paul Bardegjy and Sherwin Field)
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Gorgeous!!!
Oh, what a joyous place! It's exactly what libraries should be!
I'm a librarian in Los Angeles, and LAPL as well as other area library systems are really behind sustainable, modern designs in newly constructed libraries. LAPL's Harbor Gateway branch is eco-friendly; the new Silverlake branch is LEED certified and the design is attractively modern:
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2009/07/inside_silver_lake_library.php
And Long Beach (where I live) built its first green library a few years ago, the Mark Twain branch:
http://www.calredevelop.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=4944&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm
While there is debate over how valuable LEED certification is, I can definitely say that the public library community nationwide is going green and stylish all the way (based on what I'm seeing around me and trade publications I have to choke down every month. Those things are BO-RING).
I can't say enough great things about the Cambridge Library in Cambridge, Ontario.
Cambridge is a city that was created in 1973 by amalgamating two distinct towns (Galt and Preston) and a village (Hespeler), and thus each core has its own library, and each is remarkable and innovative in its own way.
When we lived in downtown Galt (in an 1847 Scottish stonemason's stone house), we LOVED the Queen's Square branch. Now, it doesn't exactly blend gracefully with the historic buildings surrounding it in the square (deep purple brick, different massing, etc.), but the interiors are gorgeous, light-filled, inspiring and include an art gallery, so even I (a heritage planner) am not going to quibble.
The Hespeler Branch has won numerous design awards and citations -- they encased a historic Carnegie Library (I've loved many of those over the years) in a glass shell. And the Preston Library is no slouch either -- it too has won design kudos.
http://www.cambridge.ca/gallery/28
I have always found that libraries which make the effort to embrace good design have other very exciting and innovative programs going on as well; good design is an integral part of an overall culture of creativity.
(Can't say the same about Ottawa, where the conservative mentality would never support spending money on good architecture... I live only 3 blocks from a public library in Ottawa, and it is a terrible disappointment after our wonderful experiences in Cambridge.)
The library in Oak Park, Illinois, just west of downtown Chicago is fabulous. The perfect place to spend snowy afternoons... there is a little cafe in the foyer area and the kids area (practically the entire first floor) has an aquarium, playrooms for the wee ones and dress up materials and crawl tubes for the toddlers. And a wooden "house" and tents for private reading... and computers at kid level... and tons of arts and crafts activities... I could go on and on...
http://www.oppl.org/
Thanks for the nice comments on the interior design of the library.
btw . . . we've also used the custom-colored resin panels in art / display niches and as back-lit stair risers in residences.
But where is a cozy place to curl up and read?
Most new libraries (new architecture, I mean) these days are being built with as much eco-friendly design as their budgets allow. Libraries are happening places!
I'm point person for the main floor redesign of our 20-year old building. There is a big committee of interested parties, but I'm the one mainly doing the research and locating possible sources. (We have to reuse as much as possible, so only certain things will actually be new, sad to say. It's sustainable, but it turns out the really boring or ugly things last the longest!) And I am getting ideas from this blog, among other places!!
This is the new library that just opened down the block from my son and daughter-in-law. They love it and I can't wait to see inside.