South Mountain Community + Academic Library

Joint-Use Academic + Community Library

The 51,000 sf facility integrates the social, academic, educational aspects and functional requirements of a college campus library with the popular and community based nature of a public library. This joint use library accommodates the needs of campus requirements for vivid, innovative pedagogy, and the City’s need for a fresh vital community library. The library features public use computing commons, 200 seat multi-purpose meeting space, collaborative classrooms, conference room, quiet group study rooms, cyber café, archive room, multi-media center, pod cast studio, and a library staff workroom. Additionally, an extensive teen and children’s areas, a children’s library and story time room are connected to the exterior courtyard dedicated for children’s use.

This state-of-the-art building is modeled after the architecture of an integrated circuit, providing insulation between disparate functions and promoting interaction and connection between like functions and spaces. Academic programs affiliated with those within the public library are organized around vertical interconnected spaces; providing a discrete connection while maintaining critical organization within each discipline. Natural light is brought deep into the diagram through a series of triple insulated clerestory monitors through a series of light shafts to the floors below. The interior of the building is lined in an acoustical cedar wood, frosted and laser cut acrylic panels reflect patterned abstractions of the agriculture that once was an integral part of the community.

The building consciously merges interior and exterior spaces to connect to the rich history of the site. The articulated exterior skin of weathering copper is designed to provide a naturally ventilating rain-screen, and triple layered insulated clerestories provide a high-performance enclosure.