The 270,000 square-foot library building reestablishes the public and institutional image of the Main Library and reinforces downtown Akron as an urban, cultural and architectural center. The design of the facility reflects the Library as a patron-friendly place, accommodating its users in a variety of environments.

The new addition negotiates the twenty-five foot difference in elevation between High and Main Streets. A three-story atrium along High Street brings natural light down to the lowest Main Street level and provides orientation for all patrons. The assemblage of building “objects” along Main Street includes the new library loft addition and the new theater flanking the existing library, maintaining a pedestrian scale along the mall in contrast to the automobile-scaled facade along High street, which is accessible by car.

The building encompasses the most advanced applications of technology and communication systems for administrative management, the processing of library records, and bibliographic and information networks. Special design consideration was given to provide the most flexible, state-of-the-art infrastructure and distribution systems for digital information.

Numerous community spaces are provided, including a 425-seat auditorium, a cafe, a bookstore, public meeting rooms and art exhibition spaces. An interior link to a new parking garage along High Street resolves into a new pedestrian ramp, activating the three-story addition. An outdoor amphitheater and landscaped park complete the complex.

Associate Architect: Richard Fleischman Architects, Inc.

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The selected design gives the library, which has one of the largest genealogy collections in the nation, an image that reflects its prominent role in the community and enhances the urban context. It will make a significant portion of the collection “browse-able” by expanding open stacks.

There are two public entrances to the expanded facility. The existing re-imaged Webster Street entrance maintains the current easy pedestrian access from downtown and incorporates a Café and Library Shop to permit a synergy of uses. The new Ewing Street wrap-around entrance integrates the connection to the new below-grade parking and includes a major glass component that affords attractive views to neighborhood churches and the historic district.

The east and west entrances are interconnected by the great hall, which provides clear visual orientation and access to all library departmental facilities and seamlessly integrates the existing renovated spaces and the new construction. The curved roof of the great hall contains a large north-facing skylight and a shaded south-facing clerestory window, bringing daylight into the center of the building.

The great hall can be separated from the library spaces, so that community functions can extend past library hours if needed, without compromising library security. The central great hall also houses the Circulation Desk, Central Reference Desk, self-check stations, electronic catalog stations, and informational components, as well as stairs and elevators to the Library’s second level, the new Auditorium on a lower level, and the Garage below grade.

Community use facilities are organized along the southern side of the first floor, between the great hall and Washington Blvd. These spaces include flexible Meeting Rooms, Access Fort Wayne Television, Community Computing and Public Computer Training, an Exhibition Gallery, the Café, and the Library Friend’s Store.

Associate Architect: MSKTD & Associates, Inc.

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Its philosophy is decidedly activist and ‘outreach’ with a highly trained staff of reference specialists supported by a complete reference department, open micro-form shelving, an electronic information center and several training rooms. It has been heralded by the president of the New York Public Library, of which it is the largest branch, as “… a prototype of the 21st century Library.”In addition to elegantly appointed public reception spaces and efficient reserve stacks, the facility provides 50,000 square feet of office space for library administration. Public areas are organized on the ground and lower floors, providing maximum horizontal adjacency for the research library below and easy street access to the circulating library above. Storage and administration are organized on the upper floors; with staff areas surrounding the climate-controlled, structurally reinforced stacks. Healy Hall, a 33-foot-tall, two-story volume provides a highly visible forum for changing exhibitions and receptions. The Circulating Library and Reading Room on the street level is accessible to people who want to browse through current periodicals or borrow books. A stainless steel and terrazzo staircase and a pair of glass and stainless steel elevators lead down from the entrance lobby to the Research Library, which comprises extensive research facilities, a 125-seat Conference Center and an Electronic Training Center with four modifiable classrooms. Flexibility and accessibility were the goals of the design. Workstations are separated by adjustable perforated dividers that provide lateral flexibility, create a discrete territory, and are handicapped accessible. Sight lines allow the entire library to be supervised by five people, maximizing staffing resources. A grid of removable concrete panels raises the floor six inches, permitting power and data lines to be easily reconfigured in the future. Download project pdf for more information

The new Civic Plaza identifies the new Library Building as an iconic public structure that offers four accessible facades, plus the roof, each responding to context, views, program disposition, and future development.

The main entrance to the library, off the public arcade, reveals a six-story, clerestory/skylit atrium with balconies. It establishes both the public vertical circulation and primary orientation space in the building. The atrium, which is the horizontal and vertical fulcrum of the building, anchors, defines zones, and articulates the programmatic organization and hierarchy.

On the ground floor facing the entry is the Information Desk. To the north are the Circulation Desk and Staff Workspace; to the south is the Browsing Library with internal secure access to the Copy Center, Café and Library Store, as well as to the Young Adult component. To the east are the Electronic Information Center and the Audio/Visual Collection.

The lower level contains the auditorium, meeting rooms and book sales space as well as the loading dock, operations and maintenance spaces. The second floor houses the Children’s Library and nearby outdoor play terrace, story/meeting room and crafts room. Also located there are the language and literacy center, computer services and the technology center. Newspapers and magazines are on the third floor. The fourth floor houses the fiction collection, the non-fiction collection, as well as the Administration Offices and Boardroom.

The fifth floor houses the Reader’s Hall, a two-story, clerestory-lit space that affords panoramic views of the mountains. The remaining components include Local History, Special Collections, The Center for the Book and the Art Gallery. The penthouse/roof level houses the central staff facilities all with access to a private landscaped roof terrace. The remainder of the roof is a public terrace and roof garden.

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The site is located opposite the United Nations General Assembly Building on First Avenue and 45th Street in New York City. It presents a pedestrian scale, a place scale and a city scale that attempts to be both memorable and inspiring.

The building provides office, meeting and reception spaces for the U.S. Mission, the United States Information Agency, and the Office of Foreign Missions within a 22-story structure which is designed in response to stringent blast and security criteria. Special facilities for press conferences and reception functions are provided in the base and at the top of the building.

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The proposed $120 million renovation and expansion project of the Mid-Manhattan Library will better meet the daily information needs of 8,000 New Yorkers on-site and thousands more electronically, creating a powerful catalyst for educational opportunity and economic growth.

The current Mid-Manhattan Library occupies a prime location on Fifth Avenue and 40th Street in the former Arnold Constable building which is owned by The New York Public Library. The expansion will add an additional eight floors and 117,000 square feet for library service to the existing 139,000 square foot building, while creating a 20,000 square foot ground floor presence for rental to a prominent retailer.

The design maintains the existing building, with structural modifications, retaining the contextual/urban reference, while re-imagining the limestone frame as a base and screen for a new, iconic intervention. Using the existing side facades of adjacent taller buildings on both Fifth Avenue and Fortieth Street, the addition acts as a counterpart to the original building; an articulate, glass sheathed, sculptural crystal volume that anchors the corner and establishes an extended and dynamic “place marker” for the New York Public Library/Bryant Park context.

The creation of a singular and memorable new object, as a counterpoint, embodies the visual and psychological presence of the original Beaux Arts Building with a modern vision: “A Beacon of Knowledge”. The expanded Mid-Manhattan library will offer a massive presence of information technology including over 300 computers, 100 laptops, and broad access to hundreds of electronic databases and technology training programs combining computer literacy and library literacy.

Facilities will include five “Information Commons”, one on each of five paired floors: Reference, Art, History and Social Sciences, Periodicals, and an extensive popular library including multiple copies of the latest best-sellers, language books and literature in addition to biographies, mysteries, travel books and vacation guides, books on tape, videos, and current multi-media items.

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