Library Buildings around the World

Since the community has always had a strong connection to the natural environment, a high priority was placed on sustainable
design. Directed to achieve LEED Platinum certification, the team incorporated daylight; radiant in-floor heating and cooling; biomass
boilers; photo-voltaics; rainwater collection; local materials and labor; and wetland education features.
On track to be one of the first consolidated LEED Platinum school buildings in the country, Vernonia K-12 faculty and staff will
monitor building energy use as part of a new curriculum focused on natural resources.
To inform the design with as much information about the particular needs and aspirations of Vernonia, Boora held multiple
discovery sessions, design charettes and town hall meetings with community members and students. These meetings also kept the
community of Vernonia apprised of progress and broadened the sense of ownership of the new school. (Boora)
UC (University of California) Santa Cruz, McHenry Library Renovation and Addition – USA 2010
To accommodate growth in response to expanding student population and increasing degree offerings, the University of California,
Santa Cruz commissioned Boora to renovate the McHenry Library, designed over 40 years ago by John Carl Warnecke, and add
over 116,000 square feet of space to the building.
Boora's collaboration with UCSC on the McHenry Library Renovation & Expansion began in 1993 with a full programming study.
Funding was secured in 2003, allowing Boora to move forward with design, documentation and construction. The first phase of the
project was the addition, completed in 2008. The renovation of the 160,000-square-foot existing library will be complete in the
summer of 2010, 17 years after the project was initiated.
Located on a forested site at the center of campus along a main circulation corridor, the enhanced McHenry Library strengthens the
geographic and intellectual core of campus, improves environmental conditions within the building, preserves the library’s
collections, enhances the student experience and encourages a broad range of library events. It provides the campus with a state-ofthe-art
academic resource housing offices for faculty and staff, group meeting rooms, individual study rooms and research space,
which supplement traditional book stacks and reading areas.
The original building was designed as an object in a landscape, with a cast-in-place concrete structure, steel, glass, and pre-cast
panels with exposed river rock aggregate. The building's slender columns reference the site's dense redwood forest.
The lines, proportions, and materials of the existing building are reinterpreted in the addition, creating continuity between old and
new. The addition features an exposed cast-in-place concrete structure with concrete panels and the pattern of its glazing is a
modified version of the original.
An information commons sits at the heart of the addition, accommodating computer stations organized for easy interaction between
computer terminal users, information desks offering access to library staff and research assistants, a lounge space for group work,
and both wireless and fiber optics for high-speed connectivity. A cafe is nearby
On the west elevation, a main reading room occupies a double-height space behind a two-story curtain wall with black frame. Scrims
on the exterior of the reading room control solar gain and diffuse direct light. The main reading room overlooks a new outdoor plaza
south of the entrance to the existing building will link to the campus's primary pedestrian route and accommodate outdoor lectures,
readings and other library events. A public lawn will enhance the pedestrian route and extend library functions into the adjacent
environment through outdoor lectures, readings, and other library events.
At the perimeter of the addition, a series of outdoor reading porches, screened from the elements, provide additional user spaces
attached to the building for use during warmer months of the year. Placing these spaces at the perimeter allows visitors to experience
the landscape, buffered by exterior sun-shading scrims that protect occupants from direct light.
A study bar is located along the southern edge of the building for quiet study adjacent to the stacks. The northern edge of the
building is occupied by library staff and administration. Stacks are sheltered at the center of each floor plate. (Boora)
Bowen Williamson Zimmerman Inc., Middleton, WI – USA
http://www.bwzarchitects.com
Libraries:
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Law School Addition, Madison, WI – USA 1996
Awards:
AIA Design Honor Award 1997
The purpose of this project was to add library, classroom, and office space to the University of Wisconsin - Madison Law School.
The challenge in the program was to develop a unified facility that created a holistic solution from a variety of multilevel additions
developed over time while, at the same time, respecting the historic campus district context.
Addition and Remodel: $15,000,000, 54,000 gsf (Bowen)
Will Bruder + Partners Ltd., Phoenix, Arizona – USA
now: http://www.willbruderarchitects.com
and: http://worksbureau.com
Libraries:
Parmly Billings Library, Billings, MO – USA 2013
73,344 sf.
Fully engaged with the urban context of downtown and drawing from local references both natural and man-made, the new Library
will resonate with Billing’s early architecture. It will make a grand civic gesture as it rises from a foundation of golden-gray
sandstone, zinc-clad wall panels and perforated stainless steel shading panels that are calibrated to maximize views and optimize
light. Day or night, the subtle transparency and glow of the grand reading room will cast the Library as a warm and inviting
pavilion anchoring it to the edge of downtown. Completed as willbruder+PARTNERS. (worksbureau)
Mohave County Library, Bullhead City, Arizona – USA 2012
30,000 sf
Located in Bullhead City, Arizona, the new Library incorporates the existing yet reconfigured 8,500 sf envelope and floor space,
while a new 22,300 sf addition ‘slips over’ the original building and allows the floor areas to seamlessly merge. The new scheme
extends the building towards the street, giving greater visibility and a better pedestrian experience. Through its use of creative
geometries, a balance of bold and indigenous colors, street presence, and sustainable approach, the new library is unlike any
structure in the city. Completed as willbruder+PARTNERS.
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