Library Buildings around the World

2004 Engineering Excellence Grand Conceptor Award-American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), Utah Chapter
2004 Excellence in concrete Award-American Concrete Institute, Intermountain Chapter
2003 Honor Award-American Institute of Architects, Western Mountain Region
2003 Best Utah Project of the Year-Intermontain Contractor Best of 2003 Awards
2003 Best of the Beehive Award-Salt Lake Magazine
2003 Best Public/Institutional Building-PCI (Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute) Design Awards
The Salt Lake City Main Public Library features a triangular- shaped main building, an adjacent administration building, a glassenclosed
Urban Room and a exterior public piazza. A curving climbable wall weaves the site together and contains shops and food
establishments as well as steps ascending to a roof garden above. The building glass-enclosed Urban Room and piazza flow together
uniting interior and exterior spaces. The Urban Room is conceived as a space for all seasons, generously endowed with daylight,
open to significant views and, since it extends the full height of the building, is a pivotal point of visual orientation. Multi-level main
reading areas along the transparent southern façade of the building look out onto the piazza, the city and the Wasatch Mountains
beyond. At night the glass façade, lit from within, is refelcted in a crescent-shaped reflecting pool extenting into the outdoor space.
(VCBO)
Rafael Viñoly Architects PC, New York, NY – USA
http://www.rvapc.com
Libraries:
Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC - USA 2014/2015
We are pleased to announce that the University South Carolina celebrated the “Topping Out” of the new building for the Darla
Moore School of Business in a ceremony held at the construction site on February 4, 2013.
The Darla Moore School of Business, globally renowned for its international business program, has until now been housed in a small,
1970s-era building located near the university’s historic Horseshoe, site of the original campus established in 1801. The new
building—designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects and commissioned by alumna and namesake Darla Moore through a $ 70 million
donation—will provide an environment well suited to answer the challenges of a 21st century business school.
The building program effectively provides the school’s curriculum and stimulates learning through the most up-to-date means of
technology. The building also features a green rooftop terrace, which coupled with a courtyard and perimeter terraces areas, work
to promote interaction and collaboration between faculty, students and community members. (Viñoly)
City College of New York, Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, Urban Design and
Landscape Architecture, New York, NY – USA 2009
12.170 m².
Having worked successfully on previous projects for the City University of New York (CUNY) system, Rafael Viñoly
Architects PC was chosen to design, construct and select the site for this new CCNY building. The firm explored a variety
of relocation sites and renovation options before determining that overhauling an existing structure – a five-storey, modernist
glassblock building designed and constructed as a library in the late 1950’s – would be most conducive to the college’s needs.
RVA gut-renovated the poorly maintained building, preserving only the structure of reinforced concrete columns and floor
slabs. The renovation has provided a 135,000 sq ft facility housing administrative offices, classrooms of varying sizes, an
exhibition space, an architectural library, design studios, faculty offices, a model shop, mechanical rooms, a rooftop open-air
amphitheatre and a separate facility for the City College Architectural Centre - an outreach group that provides advocacy
and planning and design assistance to community organizations. The new structure is highlighted by its central atrium, which
allows daylight to illuminate the building from the roof down to the ground floor. The atrium features an intersecting series of
steel staircases and pedestrian bridges, facilitating circulation throughout the building and establishing connectivity and
sightlines between floors. The striking walkway system promotes interactivity and spontaneous encounters among students
and faculty. Additionally, partial mezzanine levels are inserted above the studio floors to provide space for faculty offices.
These offices look over the open-plan design studios through interior glazing to a space along the building’s perimeter that
maximizes daylight in the studio areas. The corridors on the studio levels are wide, double-height areas that accommodate
lounges for informal discussion, while narrower balconies overlook these lounges and provide circulation on the office levels.
In what has become a trademark of Rafael Viñoly Architects’ institutional and educational projects, this layout promotes
interaction and fluidity of movement through innovative design solutions. The building’s exterior is clad in pre-cast concrete,
with deep shelf-like openings that on installation will feature aluminum sun-shading louvers. Oriented vertically on the east
and west facades, and horizontally on the south façade, the louvers are designed to balance outward views with maximum
shading to reduce heat gain to the interiors. On the roof, an open-air amphitheater overhangs the atrium, with a full-height
clerestory around three sides that admits natural light into the building. The amphitheater provides additional teaching and
program space, with wide, unobstructed views to the south over Central Park and the skyline of Midtown Manhattan. This
south-facing orientation also reduces direct sun exposure and thermal heat gain on the clerestory glass, even as the auditorium’s
contoured underside creates a funnel to scoop natural light down into the atrium. On the building’s periphery, Landscape
Architect Lee Weintraub’s design accentuates the main entrance, creating another accessible congregation point for students.
( www.worldarchitecturenew.com )
By the late 1990s, the School of Architecture, Urban Design, and Landscape Architecture (SAUDLA) at the City College of New
York (CCNY) had outgrown its home in Shepard Hall and needed a new facility. Having worked successfully on previous projects
for the City University of New York (CUNY) system, which includes CCNY, Rafael Viñoly Architects was chosen for the site
selection, design, and construction administration of this new building.
The firm explored a variety of relocation sites and renovation options, before determining that overhauling an existing structure—a
five-story, modernist glass-block building designed and constructed as a library in the late 1950s—would be most responsive to the
college’s needs. Decades of evolving academic and administrative needs had transformed the original site into a fractured, generally
inadequate collection of administrative offices, which were relocated prior to the renovation.
Rafael Viñoly Architects completely renovated the poorly maintained building, preserving only the structure of reinforced-concrete
columns and floor slabs. The firm cut a large opening in each floor plate to create a central atrium that directs daylight down from
the roof to the ground floor. A series of stairs and pedestrian bridges pass through the atrium to facilitate circulation through the
building and to establish connectivity and sightlines between floors so as to promote interactivity and spontaneous encounters.
Additionally, partial mezzanine levels were inserted above the studio floors to provide space for faculty offices. These offices look
over the open-plan design studios, through interior glazing, to a double-height space along the building perimeter that maximizes
daylight in the studio areas. The corridors on the studio levels are wide, double-height volumes that accommodate informal lounge
areas for relaxation and socializing, as well as pin-ups for studio “crit” spaces. Narrower balconies overlook the lounges and provide
circulation on the office levels.
227