Quincie Douglas Branch Library
Tucson, Ariz.
richärd + bauer

Richard + Bauer employs lean lines, brittle materials, and arcing forms to dramatic effect in a desert setting

© Bill Timmerman

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When last we left Richärd + Bauer, an up-and-coming architectural office in Phoenix, Arizona, it had just completed the delicately limned Desert Broom Library in its hometown [Record, January 2006, page 96]. In the fast-growing sunbelt states, public libraries appear to be the building type du jour, and this firm, having completed five lean, Modern branch libraries, with four more under construction, could claim to have cornered the Arizona market. Its principals, James Richärd, AIA; Kelly Bauer, an interior designer; and Steve Kennedy, AIA, have now taken on Tucson, where their pavilionlike Quincie Douglas Library opened last year. The brittle materials of the one-story structure, marked by a Cor-Ten-steel roof and rusted steel fencing, blend in color and texture with the flat, dry desert backdrop, while the library′s curved and angled planes stand out rakishly against the monotony of nearby suburban sprawl.

In 1999, the Tucson-Pima library system organized an anonymous design competition for a 10,000–square-foot branch that would be located adjoining the Quincie Douglas Neighborhood Center on the dusty outskirts of the city. Serving an area of about 70,000 people, many of whom are low-income and Hispanic, the library would provide a reading room for retrieving books (numbering about 50,000) from the open stacks, plus rooms for lectures, conferences, and computers. Financed through city bonds, the library was budgeted at $1.3 million, or $130 per square foot.

Since the 1.5–acre site occupies a quadrant at a heavily trafficked crossroads, Richärd + Bauer projected a pedestrian bridge that would cross a six-lane highway and connect residential development on the east to the one-story library and the existing community center.

Paralleling the extended arc of this steel-and-concrete bridge (which is still unbuilt), the firm designed the library′s roof, clad in corrugated Cor-Ten-steel panels, to split in two long "petals" so that one portion lifts up slightly above the other. The architects filled in the space between the petals with polycarbonate resin sheets to create a clerestory that admits daylight to the library′s interior.

A relatively simple structural system kept the costs down: A steel frame infilled with wood truss joists supports the roof, while concrete block, either stuccoed or sandblasted, constitutes the exterior walls, except where the Cor-Ten-steel roof slides to the ground at the entrance. The polycarbonate-resin sheets in the split roof reappear in the clerestories on the south and east walls and again in pyramid-shaped faux skylights over the meeting rooms.

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Formal name of Project:
Quincie Douglas Branch Library

Location:
Tucson, AZ

Gross square footage:
sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$

Client:
City of Tucson

Architect
richaNrd + bauer
1545 w thomas road
phoenix, arizona 85015
p 602.264.1955
f 602.264.9234
richard-bauer.com