It took nearly two decades, but a design-build team finally broke ground last month on a new branch of the public library system for the city of San Diego.
The 14,376-sf Mission Hills-Hillcrest Harley & Bessie Knox Public Library—named after the city’s former mayor and his wife, whose family is one of the new library’s donors—will be nearly four times larger than the 3,850-sf, 56-year-old branch it replaces.
The Craftsman-style, single-story facility, designed under the direction of Manuel Oncina Architects (which has worked on nine libraries for San Diego County since 1995) and Ferguson Pape Baldwin Architects, will include a study space, a computer lab, a meeting room for community events, and children’s and teens rooms.
The children’s area will recall the Hobbit houses seen in the “Lord of the Rings” movies, but with trellises that are wired for Internet connectivity.
“In general, libraries have morphed over the years,” says Andy Feth, project manager for C.W. Driver Companies, which is providing construction management and design-build services for this project. “They’ve become community gathering places.”
Feth tells BD+C that the community played a big role during the design process, which began 18 months ago. One of the community’s concerns was that the library would have adequate parking, which is scarce in San Diego. The new library will sit atop a 30,000-sf, garage, two stories below grade, with 85 parking spaces, or 76 more than the older facility.
This $17.9 million project had been put on hold for years because of the city’s financial shortfalls. It finally moved forward after the Knox and Hervey families each donated $5 million, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. City infrastructure bond funds contributed $10 million, and the rest came from other private donors, which is earmarked for more books, computers, 3D printers and other technologies.
Feth says the library—which is being built on the site of the old International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers building—is targeting LEED Gold certification, and will include energy efficient LED lighting and natural daylight streaming through clerestory windows in a 25-ft-high ceiling in the middle of the building.
The new library is scheduled for completion October 2018, which means it might open by Christmas of that year, he says.
Related Stories
| Dec 28, 2014
AIA course: Enhancing interior comfort while improving overall building efficacy
Providing more comfortable conditions to building occupants has become a top priority in today’s interior designs. This course is worth 1.0 AIA LU/HSW.
| Nov 10, 2014
Herzog & De Meuron unveils plan for National Library of Israel
The library’s new home will be a completely new building in Jerusalem, and will combine the functions of a central research center, a venue for indoor and outdoor cultural and educational activities, and a place for digital experience.
| Oct 16, 2014
Report: How to keep public libraries relevant in a digital age
Public libraries will avoid being relegated to the scrap heap of history in a digital age as long as they continue to serve as platforms for learning, creativity, and innovation that strengthen their communities, according to a new Aspen Institute report.
| Oct 16, 2014
Perkins+Will white paper examines alternatives to flame retardant building materials
The white paper includes a list of 193 flame retardants, including 29 discovered in building and household products, 50 found in the indoor environment, and 33 in human blood, milk, and tissues.
| Oct 15, 2014
Harvard launches ‘design-centric’ center for green buildings and cities
The impetus behind Harvard's Center for Green Buildings and Cities is what the design school’s dean, Mohsen Mostafavi, describes as a “rapidly urbanizing global economy,” in which cities are building new structures “on a massive scale.”
| Oct 12, 2014
AIA 2030 commitment: Five years on, are we any closer to net-zero?
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the American Institute of Architects’ effort to have architecture firms voluntarily pledge net-zero energy design for all their buildings by 2030.
| Oct 9, 2014
Regulations, demand will accelerate revenue from zero energy buildings, according to study
A new study by Navigant Research projects that public- and private-sector efforts to lower the carbon footprint of new and renovated commercial and residential structures will boost the annual revenue generated by commercial and residential zero energy buildings over the next 20 years by 122.5%, to $1.4 trillion.
| Sep 29, 2014
Snøhetta releases final plan for terraced central library in Calgary
The competition-winning New Central Library is now in the final design stages, after two years of community engagement on the part of design firms Snøhetta and DIALOG.
| Sep 24, 2014
Architecture billings see continued strength, led by institutional sector
On the heels of recording its strongest pace of growth since 2007, there continues to be an increasing level of demand for design services signaled in the latest Architecture Billings Index.
| Sep 22, 2014
4 keys to effective post-occupancy evaluations
Perkins+Will's Janice Barnes covers the four steps that designers should take to create POEs that provide design direction and measure design effectiveness.