Clearwater Public Library

The Clearwater Public Library had a special responsibility to become a locally recognizable landmark, a source of civic pride, and a community-wide learning resource. It also represents an anchor in the redevelopment of downtown Clearwater. The design took full advantage of the unique site, a bluff overlooking Coachman Park and Clearwater Harbor, to create a building that looks optimistically to the future while respecting the building traditions of Clearwater and the wider region. 
 
The principal street facade along North Osceola Avenue presents an urbane and dignified civic building, using traditional local materials like cream-colored local stone and stucco, bracketed projecting roofs, and a deeply shaded, civic-scaled entry porch. The garden facade, which opens onto Coachman Park and the waterfront, has large windows to capitalize on the magnificent views and a broad canopy to screen out excessive sunlight. A rooftop terrace with a trellis and plantings can hold civic social events. The gently undulating roof creates a memorable profile for the building appropriate to its waterfront location. 
 
The interior of the 90,000-square-foot building provides for greatly expanded and enhanced services: a children’s library nearly four times the size of the one in the existing building; state-of-the-art audiovisual and conference room facilities; greatly expanded internet and other computer services, to augment the enhanced collections of paper materials; and a specially-designed Clearwater Room, which showcases a citywide resource for local history and genealogy. The new building offers a much more efficient and user-friendly layout, replacing the confusion of the previous library, which was made up of four separate buildings and additions cobbled together over a period of 90 years. 
 
Great care was taken to use durable, sustainable, and locally appropriate materials to create an efficient to maintain and operate facility. Controlled natural daylighting supplements and reduces artificial lighting requirements, and rainwater is captured on-site and re-used for irrigation, reducing overall water use.