Construction, Culture, Good for Business, Latvia, Real Estate

The eight winners of the 2017 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards are:

1.Boston Public Library, Central Library Renovation / William Rawn Associates

2. Columbus Metropolitan Library – Whitehall / Jonathan Barnes Architecture and Design (JBAD)

3. East Boston Branch Library / William Rawn Associates

4. National Library of Latvia / Gunnar Birkerts Architects + Gelzis-Smits/Arhetips. The new library, at nearly 600,000 square feet is situated at the terminus of a bridge spanning the River Daugava. It was envisioned as a place to store, preserve, and make accessible the country’s cultural heritage. To that end, it is supported by state-of-the-art technology that allows for easy digitization and safe storage. The library’s form dovetails with functionality by accommodating the various collections areas. Presented in vertical arrays in appropriately sized spaces, they all connect to the central stack core. A full wall display of books donated by Latvians as a symbolic gesture soars through the atrium and teases the massive adjacent stack area. The atrium itself, with its central stair, provides connectivity to all the public levels and serves as a unifying element that illustrates the library’s logical organization and circulation.

5. New York Public Library Stapleton Branch Renovation and Expansion / Andrew Berman Architect

6. Rosa F. Keller Library and Community Center; New Orleans / Eskew+Dumez+Ripple

7. University of Oregon Allan Price Science Commons & Research Library Remodel and Expansion / Opsis Architecture

8. Varina Area Library; Henrico, Virginia / BCWH + Tappe Architects

The jury for the 2017 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards included:

• Will Bruder, FAIA, (Chair) Will Bruder Architects
• Duncan Ballash, AIA, EHDD
• Luren E. Dickinson, Beaumont Library District
• Ameet Doshi, Georgia Institute of Technology Library
• Alan Grosenheider, UCSB Library
• Alexander Lamis, FAIA, Robert A.M. Stern Architects.