Price Gilbert and Crosland Tower Library Renewal

Project Details

Project Description

Public Libraries are undergoing radical transformation. A number of recent cultural and technological evolutions have given new relevance to the Library as a place, an institution, and a service. The Price Gilbert Memorial Library and Crosland Tower renewal project at Georgia Tech Library in Atlanta, Georgia, is a transformational project that serves as a new 21st-century model for STEM-focused research libraries.

The Georgia Tech Library embarked upon a reimagining of its identity nearly a decade ago. The Library occupies two buildings – the original Price Gilbert Memorial Library and the Crosland Tower stacks building – and operates a third, the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons. All three buildings are adjacent to and connected with one another and are located at the center of Georgia Tech’s Midtown Atlanta campus. In 2013 and 2014, the Georgia Tech Library worked with Brightspot Strategy to develop a vision and strategy that would guide the Renewal project focused on the services the Library aspired to offer including instructional services, community engagement, space management, resources, technology, expertise, and general services.

Key Components
The Library Store is the physical front door of the building and also its heart. A visitor can come to this place and understand the full spectrum of the Library’s offerings, including its services, exhibitions, programs, and expertise. The Expert Consultation area, staffed by Research Navigators, is serious space to conduct deep, targeted research with the assistance of content expert Librarians. The Teaching Studio is intended to help educators improve their techniques and practices in a safe environment and to foster a culture of experimentation, positive risk-taking, and learning by doing.

The centerpiece of the Scholar’s Event Network is an 80-person, two-story presentation theater. Nestled in what was originally the entry lobby of Price Gilbert, the theater is designed to host and record guest lectures, dissertation defenses, and special events. It is integrated with a series of smaller rooms for breakout discussions.
The Digital Media and Scholarship Commons is a technology-rich space designed to support all manner of digital scholarship, filled with high-end workstations, large format printing, gadget checkout, a data visualization lab, and recording studios. The Library’s Office of Information Technology office is adjacent to these spaces, ensuring support is close at hand. The Innovation and Ideation Studio is, by contrast, decidedly analog. It is a place to explore, iterate, and create quickly, either alone or as part of a group.

Spaces for Books, Spaces for People
Georgia Tech’s collection is notably strong in several areas, the most popular of which is Science Fiction. As part of the Collections Showcases space and service typology, SciFi is housed in a purpose-built area of the building, complete with retro-chic displays and furnishings. Showcased collections appear in a number of other areas throughout the complex as well, both physically and digitally. In addition to its interest in delivering specific services in customized spaces, the Library provides places for quiet, individual study that are laced throughout the complex, most notably in four generous, light-filled reading rooms. Outdoor spaces are provided as well, from a screened-in porch adjacent to the mature trees of the Grove to rooftop terraces overlooking Atlanta’s skyline.

Price Gilbert Memorial Library and Crosland Tower’s use of the electronic library collection has increased dramatically, which led to a design-focus on people. Almost 100% of Georgia Tech’s print collection is now housed in the Library Service Center, a climate- and humidity-controlled building that is purposefully designed with the long-term stewardship of these materials in mind, allowing 130,000 square foot Crosland Tower building to be made available for other uses.

Connectedness
Central to the Library’s vision of itself is the idea of connectedness. As the research library becomes more integrated with its surrounding network of scholarly knowledge, the library building can become a connected, visible, and porous venue for the sharing of knowledge. The link connecting the two buildings, which used to be a heavy barrier, is now lifted off the ground, allowing pedestrian passage from the south end of campus to the north. Connectedness also implies an attitude of revealing and sharing. It is important that passers-by can see the various activities taking place in the Library, and equally important that visitors to the Library retain a connection to the world that surrounds them. The design team’s intent for the Library Renewal is to create good spaces for people that remain relevant far into the future.

Energy Use and Human Performance
Several of the passive design strategies used by the team concerned thoughtful solar orientation. Daylight, energy and thermal comfort iterative modeling techniques were used to inform the new façade designs and interior finishes. The availability of natural light decreases dependence on electric lighting, since daylight dimming controls are used on the all-LED light fixtures. The decreased lighting intensity gives off less heat, which allows air conditioning systems to work less frequently and less hard, extending their useful life and saving energy.
Water, like electricity, is a resource the design team endeavored to use sparingly. The Library complex used approximately 1 million gallons of potable water per year before the renewal; following construction, it uses a mere tenth of that. The bottom line for strategies like these is to decrease energy consumption while increasing the performance of the Library’s users. The post-renewal buildings are designed to use around one-third of the total energy of the existing buildings, and energy use on a per person basis will drop to 20% of its previous total. The renewal is also an exemplar of how old buildings can be given new life to perform at the highest levels of energy efficiency and promote human health and well-being.