Designing a new library building

The most recent library design meeting was August 12, 2009. USKH designer Matt Prouty presented plans based on the feedback received at previous design discussions. A few refinements to these plans have since been made, and the design will be submitted to the fire marshall for approval.

• property map and current site plan

• floor plan for the ground level, first phase

• floor plan for the second storey

• floor plan for the ground level, with the second (expanded) phase

Regular meetings are held on the 2nd Wednesday of the month at Hartung Hall at 7 pm to discuss library business.

The library board was originally asked by the community to work on a design that would make the library building a community center. The librarians settled down for some serious thought and consideration of what our ideal, full-featured new library would incorporate, and came up with a rough list of nifty ideas (below).

Gary Pohl of Wildland Design and interns at USKH have created three draft plans, which were refined into one plan. These plans (draft designs and final plans) are in a binder at the library for the members' perusal as well as on line. The drafts were discussed at our October 2007 meeting and some basic features decided on. See the current site plan here. For examples and resources on green libraries (what we hope to build), please visit the Green Libraries Directory.

At the November 2, 2008 meeting, it was decided to leave out the basement and to build in stages, thus making the structure both more affordable and more quickly usuable.

The membership's input on construction is encouraged! Actual designwork is mostly complete; now we need to organize the construction—and fund it. We need a construction team to organize our permitting, contracting, and design work. This includes a contractor or construction manager, a mechanical engineer, and an electrical engineer or master electrician. Please contact the librarians if you would like to help with this. Thanks!

There have been several planning meetings on the library design: 8/12/09, 1/18/09, 11/2/08, 10/21/07 7/7/07, 12/9/06, 8/27/06, 8/6/06, and 6/16/06.

The list below was our initial grab bag of ideas that we hoped to incorporate into the library's design.

Design features

• expandable building (as the collection grows, the library should be able to grow comfortably too)
• green building, with low energy use, composting toilet, passive and active solar design, superinsulation, recycled and recyclable (low impact) materials, nontoxic materials, natural and full-spectrum lighting (where it won't damage the books), multipurpose furnace, and appropriate environmental controls to preserve the collections
• community oriented: the grounds should include space for a community garden and bicycle/scooter parking;an outdoor reading pavilion/warmup area; the parking lot should not be the prominent feature; the design should include, along with the library collections, space for a conference room, gallery space, museum space, a café and kitchenette, office space, a children's book room, audio/visual booth(s), a map room, an aurorarium/observatory, minerals collection display, a hangout space/lounge (with comfy couch and table), a mud/entry/coat room, and, of course, a utility room. Per the ECA's request, there should be enough common room for the building to be used as a community center.
• site oriented: the building should generate as much of its own power as possible, through solar, hydro, or wind power, or such means as heat differential power generators (i.e., as much independence from oil, coal, and the grid as possible). The building and grounds should fit into their surroundings as though they belong there, looking and operating as part of the community and land.

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