Program: A renovation of Portland's International Style public library, with a new café, an expanded computer center, a larger children's area, a new space for teens, meeting rooms, and an auditorium, spread over the main and lower levels. The 47,077-square-foot building includes a second and third level, which will be renovated in phase two of the project, and a fourth level housing mechanical space.
Design concept and solution: Scott Simons Architects wanted to open up the library's dark, cavelike interior and turn it into an inviting public space without altering the granite exterior of Portland's only International Style building. They moved the library's entrance—previously in the depths of the building, at the end of a long ramped corridor—to the sidewalk. On the exterior, the architects took advantage of unused outdoor space in the shadow of a double-height overhang: they glassed it in to create an atrium café and new entrance hall. Above the overhang, they extended the glass out from the facade, giving the curtain wall the appearance of weaving in and out of the undisturbed slate. Inside, the Scott Simons team removed the walls that had enclosed the old entrance corridor and added open stairs to the floors above and below, revealing the logic of the building. Sheet-glass railings further improve sight lines, and a straightforward materials palette of clear-finished wood and metallic-looking metals reinforces the architects' what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach.
Architect:
Scott Simons Architects, LLC
75 York Street
Portland, Maine 04101
Phone: 207.772.4656
Fax: 207.828.4656
Location: 5 Monument Square, Portland, Maine
Completion Date: April 2010
Total construction cost: $5.7 million
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