Description

The Arabian Public Library sits low amid the arid Arizona landscape, a sculptural volume of rusted and tilted metal planes. Four branch libraries, each named after a local horse breed, serve Scottsdale’s affluent and highly educated population of 245,000. In this city the per capita income is 2.5 times the national average. Located in a sprawling suburban neighborhood, this branch library serves patrons accustomed to a culture of gated communities and shopping malls. Library service for this group with its particular demands has shaped the direction of the design.

Richärd + Bauer’s design approaches the project through the lens of retail design. On the exterior, the blank facades of monolithic, rusted, metal planes serve to focus one’s attention inwards and towards the books while obscuring the surrounding suburban context. Architect Jim Richärd explained that he “struggled with the ordinariness of the surroundings, with the minimarts, the chain stores and the surface lots” and that the resultant forms are instead inspired by the slot canyons of the Arizona deserts. The drama of these passageways in the rock walls is replicated in the library entrance with its art installation by Norie Sato as well as in the narrow, daylit corridors along the courtyard through deftly placed architectural forms. The result is a series of interesting vistas that serve to draw the user through the library.

On the interior, in a one-story open plan arranged around an internal courtyard, patrons are encouraged to roam as if in a stylized bookstore café. The lack of circulation and reference desks and the use of self-check stations make this experience entirely plausible. The library’s strategy is to attract occupants with beautifully displayed merchandise and showroom furnishings. The library has even established a remote online reservation system with a drive-thru pick-up. The spaces are carefully designed to maximize the use of natural light and to create an atmosphere conducive to computer use and reading. An under-floor ventilation system resides in the 46 cm raised floor – it not only reduces the visual clutter of ductwork but also serves to circulate air.

While the Arabian Public Library achieves the aim of the library to “merchandise”, the deliberate exclusion of the context in the design begs consideration. In turning inwards, the project turns its back to the immediate albeit ordinary suburban setting. In doing so, the project has given up an important role of the library to be part of a civic community.

Levinson, Nancy. “Arabian Public Library”, Architectural Record, June 2008

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Originally published in: Nolan Lushington, Wolfgang Rudorf, Liliane Wong, Libraries: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2016.