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More than 60 community members attended this meeting to discuss updated design development for the new Montlake Branch. The Seattle Public Library City Librarian Deborah L. Jacobs started the meeting with welcoming comments and introductions of Gilbert W. Anderson, Library Board trustee and Montlake Branch steward; Linda Larson, Library Board president; Alexandra Harris, the Library’s capital program director; Claudia McCain, director of neighborhood libraries; Justine Kim, Library capital projects manager for the Montlake Branch; Brian Bannon, Montlake Branch manager; Ed Weinstein, Richard Yancey and Matt Aalfs, Weinstein A/U Architects + Urban Designers, the design team; Kelly Davidson, Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs project manager; David Spiker, Seattle Design Commission member; Barbara Swift, Swift and Co., the landscape architect; Ellen Santarelli and Lyle Bicknell, who served as community representatives for the Library’s architect selection process; and Ellen Judson and Suzanne Kotz from the Citizen Implementation Review Panel (CIRP), a 15-member panel that provides citizen oversight of the Library's Libraries for All building program. Alex Harris spent a few minutes covering the project budget, Libraries for All design goals and the history of the public comment process for the project.
Ed Weinstein and Richard Yancey showed illustrations of the current design, with many updates since the schematic design shown in May. Weinstein addressed the design team’s response to the community’s concern over the building’s horizontality and monolithic character of the original large, shed roof form. The new design breaks up the three different program elements – the meeting room, the entry stairway and the reading room – into a composition of forms better relating to the commercial structure to the south while emphasizing the verticality of the entry glass volume.
The entry plaza has been redesigned to open up for better access from all around the corner of 24th Avenue East and East McGraw Street and to provide outdoor gathering spaces for branch patrons. The exterior and interior material palette has been refined to warmer, richer finishes such as brick or stone cladding in combination with stained wood. The design team will use the materials in a strategic way to create a visually enriching environment within the allowed project budget.
Barbara Swift presented the landscape design concept, and Kelly Davidson explained the artist’s concept for a stained glass sundial/skylight on behalf of project artist Rebecca Cummins, who could not attend the meeting.
Residents asked the following questions and made the following comments:
Q. Are you still pursuing adding parking along
24th Avenue East?
A. The design team will propose that idea to the
Seattle Department of Transportation for review and
consideration. Parked cars would provide a safety
buffer for pedestrians and would also act as a traffic-calming
element.
Q. Ken Schubert, president of the Montlake Community
Club, thanked the Library and the architects for continuing
to listen to the community comments and said he appreciated
all the changes in response. He also asked the architect
to explain the stylistic choice of the current design
solution.
A. The project style is a contemporary design
solution appropriate to the specific site and circumstances.
Seattle Design Commission member David Spiker added
that the design commission fully supports the design
direction of the project and feels that the architects
have designed a wonderfully functional building on
a very difficult site, addressing the corner of 24th
Avenue East and East McGraw Street and the existing
context very appropriately.
Q. Did you consider eliminating the row of columns
inside for flexibility?
A. We have looked at the possibility but decided
not to pursue it because it resulted in a deep truss
type of roof structure, which did not seem desirable
for the proportion of this building.
Q. Are all your trees deciduous? What about the
landscape in the winter?
A. There will also be flowering hedges, low shrubs
and ground covers that bloom throughout the year to
keep the landscaping interesting in all seasons.
Q. I really like what you have done, but could
you bring back the sloped roof only at the reading
room for the added volume?
A. We can study that idea.
Q. How do your horizontal window patterns relate
to our neighborhood with more vertical and square-shaped
windows only?
A. An institution is a timeless entity. We did
not consider the vertical or square-shaped residential
window types to be appropriate for the branch design.
Q. What happens if brick is not affordable for
the project down the road?
A. If the budget becomes critically tight, the
wall in front of the garage may change to a landscape
cover instead of brick.
Comment: This design is a wonderful response to the community, and feels like we are getting a lot for the money and will be very proud of it for the years to come.
Many other community members commented that they liked the new changes, including the material, lower height of the building, more bookshelves along the glass wall and the window seats. They said they were glad the branch would not look like the houses.
Gilbert W. Anderson discussed next steps for the project, saying the project will proceed with the construction documents phase and go out to bid sometime in the spring of next year.
The meeting ended with a reminder to send comments to Library staff members or e-mail the capital program office at capital.program@spl.org. People can also contact Justine Kim, Library project manager, at 615-1329 or by e-mail at justine.kim@spl.org. The meeting ended at 8:30 p.m.
Content Modified:29 October 2003
09/08/2006
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