Title: Palmetto Library
Location of Proejct: Palmetto, GA
Project Completion Date: Jan. 2016
Firm Name: Houser Walker Architecture
Short Description: The 11,000sf Palmetto Library serves the communities of Palmetto and Chattahoochee Hills in a largely rural but developing region outside of Atlanta, GA.
We were inspired by a nearby barn’s stature in the landscape, its materiality, and response to climate. Our subsequent design sought to retain and transformed these qualities. The resulting composition recalls the profile and positioning of the barn while transforming it into a pres-ence more suited to a public structure. The structure is 40% more energy efficient than base-line, pulls daylight into all working spaces, and features almost exclusively local and regional-ly sourced components.
Architect's Statement: The Palmetto Library is a new, $3.5M facility serving the communities of Palmetto and Chattahoochee Hills in South Fulton County. At 11,000sf, the facility delivers much needed public library services to a largely rural but rapidly developing region of Georgia.
The site, a three acre parcel located behind Palmetto’s Fire Department, lies along a two lane, largely barren connector highway. A crescent of existing, mature specimen oaks and pines line the southern and western edges. From the street, the topography slopes away at a fairly consistent two percent rate. Throughout this surrounding landscapes, native tall grasses and pecan tree orchards grow. We took deep inspiration from local vernacular structures, especially their material presence and fit into the land. As we began considering our design and its response to the local terrain and climate, we chose barns as a befitting formal archetype to explore.
Programmatically, the library consists four dominant areas: an adult’s resource area; a children’s resource area; staff workspaces; and a public meeting space.
In response to identifying the program needs – and to transform the vernacular into the civic - we began our formal investigations by taking the volumetric profile of the existing structure and slicing it into quarters. Each of the major program areas was assigned to a particular volume and each volume was adjusted, rotated, and openings inserted to allow daylight and views.
The Adult and Children’s resource areas act as large reading rooms, with ceilings soaring to 20+ feet at their apex and natural light filtering through the space. A Community Meeting room occupies one ‘box’ and staff workspaces another. A Teen area is “awkwardly” compressed into a residual space between the Adult and Children’s rooms. Filling the space between the major volumes are a sky-lit entry sequence running north/south and building services on the east/west.
Inside, all major spaces are linked to each other visually. To help create the perception of being in a larger space, entry into each major room occurs at a corner of the volume, with a corresponding diagonal vistas arranged to be visible on the opposite diagonal corner. Vistas down the primary parallel axes help provide orientation throughout the building. We sought to create a strong visual flow (allowing minimal staff to adequately service the building) while maintaining an overall understanding of the building as a collection of discrete volumes.
Connecting the building to its regional landscapes, a native tall grass prairie was re-cultivated. New pecan trees were planted across the property’s entry, parking lot, and entry landscape on a 40’ grid, recalling the formal geometry of nearby tree farms. The Meeting Room opens directly onto a covered ‘porch’ and pollinator garden. Bio-swales and pervious paving help direct storm-water back into the local watershed. The resulting composition recalls the profile and positioning of the barn while transforming it into a presence more suited to a public structure.
Ecologically, while the property location did not enable any of the LEED location credits, the structure is certified LEED Silver. The structure is 40% more energy efficient than the baseline model, brings daylight into all working spaces, and materially features almost exclusively local and regionally sourced components.
Major exterior materials include a composite wood siding rain screen, zinc roofing, exposed concrete, and corrugated Cor-ten steel. Siding patterns recall the original barn but are sharpened by the addition of vertical stainless steel dividers. Each ‘box’ is rendered in a slightly different color but are unified by roofing materials, patterning, and the foundation materials.
Each box at the interior consists of a similar design approach and articulation of material (trim, flooring, color deployment, etc) but are rendered in four different specific material and color schemes. For example, four regionally sourced and reclaimed woods – eastern long leaf pine, American cherry, black walnut, and eastern maple - were correlated to the building’s uses and users: the lightest wood (maple) being utilized in the Children’s area, the darkest (walnut) in the Adult areas. Pine, perhaps unfortunately most associated with its utility value as a framing material but prized among the design team, is utilized in the staffing area. Carpet patterns remain the same throughout, while the colors move from brighter to more saturated. Polished and stained concrete define the entry area, Cor-ten surrounds the skylights, and custom wood structures in the Children’s area recall local silos and a drying rack trellis.
Palmetto Library
Category
Design Awards > New Construction & Substantial Renovation
Description
Palmetto Library
Palmetto, GA
Jan. 2016
Houser Walker Architecture
Winner Status
- Merit
Share