Louise Wells Kasian Children’s Activity Room
at Lake Forest Library
Lake Forest, Ill.
David Woodhouse Architects

A creative performance space makes good use of its subterranean location

© Barbara Karant

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An existing, 1931 neo-Georgian building with 1970s modernist additions is the home of this new children’s activity room, carefully designed to respect the historical context while maintaining its own identity. Sited in a basement children’s library, the room resides at a low elevation, which is enhanced by bringing an existing walled garden to the basement level, covered with a gently sloped skylight. The original experience of an outdoor courtyard is retained and the library’s rooms are generously sunlit. Modern materials (large sheets of glass, stainless steel, concrete, maple-veneered plywood, colored acrylic) enact traditional forms.

The room accommodates a variety of children’s performance types. The classical heritage of live performance is celebrated around the room’s latitudinal axis. The curve of the suspended steel light ring against the sky recalls the semicircular cavea of an open air Graeco-Roman theater, sheltered by the velarium of linen shades overhead. The skênê is a transformative cabinet with the canonical triple openings of a classical stage building. In the center, a red stage flips out like a children’s pop-up book below a storyteller’s throne behind which secret panels of various materials slide out to help tell tales. Pleated panels unfold on either side (like flats of stage scenery or pages in a book) in a crazy-quilt false perspective, to embrace the rug-rat audience and flexibly subdivide the 1,430-square-foot space. Retractable tables for story-based art programs appear from flanking openings. At one end, doors swing open to reveal the hidden puppet factory playhouse. The gesturing, harlequin-colored cabinet "performs" beneath the confetti of sunlit plastic wands. Meanwhile, the longitudinal axis is devoted to video programming. At the end of the room, a translucent screen floats silently on a wall of glass, waiting to be brought to life by projected images that can also be seen from the library beyond.

Formal name of Project:
Louise Wells Kasian Children’s Activity Room at Lake Forest Library

Location:
Lake Forest, Ill.

Gross square footage:
1,730 sq ft

Total construction cost:
$780,000

Owner:
Lake Forest Library

Architect:
David Woodhouse Architects
811 West Evergreen Avenue #203
Chicago, IL 60622
T: 312.943.3120
F:312.943.3432
www.davidwoodhouse.com