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A first-grade class marches down a typical school corridor, whose drab block walls reflect the eerie glare of flickering fluorescent lights. They climb a stairway with balustrades of steel mesh common to detention centers. Soon they see a signal of their destination on the corridor floor. A tongue of orange rubber beckons through a pair of curious doors with Alice in Wonderland-like windows. Over the doors a sky blue canopy supports giant sculptural letters that exclaim: L!BRARY.
The children enter another world. The expansive floor is a playful garden of colorful carpet squares patterned like an enlarged hopscotch surface. The floor is peppered with mobile tables shaped like three-quarter moons, PEZ-colored strap chairs, and upholstered club chairs that look like Rubik’s cubes. Wood boxes that resemble giant Legos and contain thousands of books are laid like bricks to embrace the open space. Above the books, a tall frieze of printed poems written by school children creates an imaginary landscape hedge. Glass and metal light fixtures hang from the ceiling in a frozen dance of Life Savers and Jawbreakers. In one area of the library the librarian conducts an interactive workshop about research on the Internet with a class of fifth graders grouped around clusters of computers. In another area the first-grade class eagerly collects picture books before gathering for story time on the circular rug and multicolored stools in front of the mini stage.
Entry from hallway
Instructional area.
This is a glimpse of a twenty-first-century school library in action, shedding its past as a dusty depository of books. Leading the advance in education, the library is the school’s magnet, the central place of assembly where qualified staff direct and help children to read, explore, and navigate the information world as well as consult teachers on curricula and welcome parents. What is the design of such an active and magnetic place? Child friendly (in terms of scale, materials, and color) without being childish (like an amusement park), the library should appear both sophisticated and whimsical, a memorable and exciting place to have fun learning. The design, more than a tool for education, can be a tool of education. Like an imaginative toy, a harmonious design of intriguing shapes, geometric patterns, and tactile surfaces can be a playful demonstration of mathematics, color, and gravity. Particularly for children, design can be a tool that stirs imaginations and creates the impulse to know and to read. In the words of Virginia Gardner Troy explaining the designs of Anni Albers textiles, "The viewer scans the [designs] for clues to a code and by doing so becomes engaged in a perceptual activity not unlike that of reading."1
Libraries and reading are fundamental to learning. In school systems such as those in New York City, where functioning libraries rarely exist, more than half of the 1.1 million school children read below grade level. While studies prove that "students in schools with appropriate and sufficient library collections and qualified library personnel tend to perform better on standardized [reading] tests," libraries have bigger fish to fry.2 They can provide the instruction and the technology to prepare "students for a love of reading, life-long learning, informed decision making, and the use of information technologies."3 Looking ahead, librarians recognize that the next wave of students are not just book readers, they are hunters, gatherers, and traders of information.
Libraries are important, so they should look important. Several educators and children explained it this way: "The library space should be the crown jewel of the school "because "a beautiful library will create the enthusiasm for kids to want to come to the library ... because it changes everyone’s impression of the school ... it teases children’s imaginations and whets their appetite ... it generates excitement about learning." As one seasoned librarian elaborated: "A very attractive library will draw the students and teachers into the library ... then it’s up to me and my staff to deliver.... My dream is that one day I will hear a ten-year-old in the lunch room tell his friend he wants to go the library after school instead of the video arcade."
"Children learn best by talking to colleagues and sharing ideas," according to one educator, and library design can spur group interaction. Study carrels are out; four-person tables that be ganged together for seminars and conferences are in. Furthermore, children with learning disabilities have the opportunity in the library to participate in rewarding group activities. I was told of one ten-year-old who could barely read but was natural at producing and helping others with Kid Pix projects in the library, which boosted his self-confidence to learn to read. Younger ones still sit on the floor for story and puppet time but also act out stories in solo and group performances. Friends and teachers applaud ... and no one says, "Shhhh."
The twenty-first-century library will be a flexible work and social setting for multiple activities, like modern workplaces or chain bookstores. Office settings have become less a beehive of closed rooms and cubicles and more a fluid colony of transient work and meeting places. Work and learning are collaborative activities. Office managers and media specialists both require flexible spaces for changing activities. The future library is simultaneously a classroom, computer lab, reading room, study hall, conference center, theater, lecture hall, teacher’s lounge, community center (but not a gym), and place for parents to meet. Libraries and their designs can provide the biggest bang for the buck. An adequately sized school library of about 1,800 to 2,000 square feet (the equivalent of two large classrooms) consumes about 5 percent of a school’s real estate yet can serve and inspire 100 percent of the school’s teachers and students. For school systems facing challenges with funding, teachers, and facilities, the library is a discreet and manageable tool that enhances the appearance of the school, highlights the importance of learning, and lifts the performance and esteem of children.
What are the design principles of the compact, flexible, interactive, inviting, and exciting future library? There is no single formula or recipe. The library design should not be a clone-like part of a fast-food restaurant chain—imagine if every book had the same author. However, every library should have a chef, and that chef should be an architect who brings practicality and passion to the art and science of design. Like a creative cook, an architect can transform everyday ingredients (wood, paint, lights, display surfaces) into satisfying and memorable experiences. Unlike a chef, for whom too many cooks spoil the broth, architects do their best creative thinking in collaboration with educators, librarians, administrators ... and children.
The recipe that follows is one that has been passed down from our experiences in observing children and designing libraries. As one child advised me, "a good design should have colors, soft seating, and be questionable." Upon further probing, I discovered "questionable" meant that the design should be provocative. That seemed good because questions stir up learning.
Figure 1 shows our recipe for an inquiry-based library design to set the table for learning and please the palette of children and adults.
| 1 open space (one edge minimum with windows)
8,000 interesting books and shelving 48 seats (hard and soft) 12 tables (4 kids to a table) 120 pounds of fresh technology (computers, scanners, projectors, wireless laptops) 6 common building materials (i.e., wood, metal, plastic, paint, glass, fibers) 1 full spectrum of light and color Tons of letters and numerals Note: Numbers may vary according to context. |
Figure 1. School Library Design
Take ingredients from figure 1 and combine two classroom-sized spaces into one open and flexible floor space. Mold perimeter walls and ceilings to define unique character of space that is both intimate and grand. Create geometric floor pattern out of modular, suitable, soft, and durable material. Arrange boxes of wood bookcases and tackable display surfaces on the perimeter; intersperse with glass openings to corridor. Create one significant break in bookcases for memorable and inviting entrance with glass openings. Put a clear sign announcing the library from the hall. Hang direct and indirect nondirectional light fixtures from the ceiling for general and task lighting. Place the librarian station (and adjacent storage area) with a clear view of library. Within remaining space, place lower mobile bookcases around instructional and performance areas. Produce an imaginary theater out of low bookcases and flooring, suitable for sitting. Introduce color to spice "form and material and to elucidate its divisions."4
Remember: Color is not decoration; it is a teaching tool, an alphabet of light. Place two projection screens near the theater and in the instructional area. Cover remaining wall surfaces with lots of words, poetry, and images. Now generously sprinkle space with mobile and modular furniture in assorted colors and textures. The furniture should be fun to touch, but tough as nails. Last but not least, place books, computers, and other media in convenient, accessible, and visible locations. Serves at least four dozen children and a bunch of adults.
Presently our firm is directing a unique and ambitious experiment in New York City to prove the benefits of quality library design to the learning performance and experience in public elementary schools (see sidebar). As part of an initiative launched by the Robin Hood Foundation and the New York City Board of Education to reinvent the central library for 650 public schools, we have solicited nine other design-driven New York architectural firms to join us in designing ten new libraries. Each library design is different and bears the imprint of the individual architect (chef) but incorporates similar ingredients. Presently the construction of these ten are nearly complete and being served to the children, principals, teachers, and librarians who look forward to a fun feast of learning in exciting library environments.
How can reinventing the library in the New York City public elementary schools help children become literate citizens? The L!BRARY initiative has the answer. The initiative is led by the Robin Hood Foundation in partnership with the Board of Education, educators, and a volunteer team of architects and designers. It offers a total vision for the future library. The vision is to creatively design, professionally staff, and technologically equip New York City’s 650 public elementary school libraries. The initiative:
Helfand Myerberg Guggenheimer Architects (HMGa) is the design director for the L!BRARY initiative. To explore various design ideas, in June 2000 HMGa asked nine fellow firms (Paul Bennet, Deborah Berke Architect, Alexander Gorlin Architect, Richard Lewis Architect, Ronnette Riley Architect, Tsao and McKown Architects, Weiss/Manfredi Architects, della Valle+Bernheimer design, and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Associates) to join them in designing and building ten pilot libraries. The architects were glad to donate their services to children so often deprived of any attentive architecture and design. Each architect adopted one school from the first ten schools chosen from some of New York City’s neediest school districts. The L!BRARY initiative believes design can support and trigger learning. Accordingly the architects explored various ways in which space and form, materials and colors, and lighting and furniture could positively affect children’s behavior and cognition. The ten libraries by ten architects provide a laboratory experiment that reveals a wide range of design solutions, suitable for rolling out the remaining 640 libraries. For the past year, the band of architects and designers enjoyed regular gatherings at HMGa’s office. They critiqued each others’ renovation designs. They compared layouts, borrowed materials, and shared stories from site visits. Designers Michael Bierut and Tucker Viemeister provided library graphics and design advice. Concurrent sessions with the Robin Hood Foundation, the Board of Education, principals, library experts such as Carol Kroll, and Sciame construction tackled functional, cost, construction, quality, schedule, and aesthetic issues. Construction began for the first wave of the ten pilot libraries in spring 2001. Presently seven of the first ten pilot libraries are in full operation, and the construction of the remaining three is nearly complete.
1 Virginia Gardner Troy, Anni Albers and Ancient American Textiles: From Bauhaus to Black Mountain (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2002).
2 Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, "Study Shows Rise in Test Scores Tied to School Library Resources," Education Week 28 (Mar. 22, 2000).
3 American Association of School Librarians, Mission and Goals, April 10, 2001, <www.ala.org/aasl/mission.html>. Accessed 9 July 2002.
4 Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Experiencing Architecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Pr., 1962).
Henry Myerberg is a principal of Helfand Myerberg Guggenheimer Architects, a well-recognized firm in the library field. He also is an active LAMA committee member and a frequent speaker at ALA conferences. His design for the Rhys Carpenter Library at Bryn Mawr College received a 2001 AIA/ALA design award. Presently Helfand Myerberg Guggenheimer is the lead architect of the L!BRARY initiative in New York.