Current Libraries
Library Clients Ferguson Public Library Stamford, Connecticut Lynn University Library Boca Raton, Florida Dana Addition, Case Library Colgate University Hamilton, New York Silliman College Renovation Yale University (includes library) New Haven, Connecticut Sterling Law School Library Renovation Yale University New Haven, Connecticut
Davenport College Renovation Yale University (includes library) New Haven, Connecticut Jewish Religious Center and Library Williams College Williamstown, Massachusetts
West Hills Conte School New Haven, Connecticut Projects In Design
Law Library, Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts
Samuel Slover Memorial Library Norfolk, Virginia
Middlesex Community College Library and Classroom Building Middletown, Connecticut
John Jermain Memorial Library Sag Harbor, New York
Fairfield Public Library Fairfield, Connecticut
Cross Campus Library, Yale University New Haven, Connecticut (with Edward Larrabee Barnes)
Westport Public Library Addition and Renovation Westport, Connecticut
Calhoun College Renovation Yale University (includes library) New Haven, Connecticut
New Jersey State Library Renovation Trenton, New Jersey
Jonathan Edwards College Renovation Yale University (includes library) New Haven, Connecticut
Nathan Hale School New Haven, Connecticut
New Classroom and Library Building New School of Social Research New York, New York Darien High School Darien, Connecticut
Ridgefield Library Ridgefield, Connecticut Beineke Rare Books Library, Yale University New Haven Connecticut Competition Entries New Library of Jalisco State Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico Guangzhou Library Guangzhou, China
Current Libraries
21st Century Libraries
All libraries today are participating in a transformation that is as revolutionary for society in its way as the birth of universal public education was. And just as the rise of the library in the 19th and early 20th centuries expressed that earlier social revolution, so too are the changes in contemporary library practice an expression of new ways of living. In this exciting and creative period, one of the oldest and most fundamental of human institutions is showing itself to be as relevant as ever. The library is a cornerstone in the life of society, integral to our lives as individuals, and central to every vital, active community. As much as it is a place visited for pleasure or learning, the library is a place people visit as an assertion and free expression of their common humanity and interdependence.
Slover Memorial Library Norfolk, VA Opening Winter 2015 Pursuing LEED SILVER
The new 160,000-square foot Samuel Slover Memorial Library is scheduled to open in early 2015. As part of the design, the historic 1900’s Seaboard Building will be fully renovation and restored and will house the Sargeant Collection. The new 100,000 sf addition will connect seemlessly to the Seaboard Building though a new glass atrium, accented with sculptural trellis work by renowned artist Kent Bloomer. The addition will house a new multi-media Popular Library with cafe, children’s library, adult non-fiction and reference library, teen library, meeting and group study rooms, digitization labs and outdoor terraces.
Slover Library (continued)
The design is open and transparent, with top floor areas affording panoramic views of the downtown and harbor. When completed, this highly efficient library complex will be one of the most technologically advanced in the world. Slover Library (continued)
Slover Library (continued)
SMC Digital Displays
Word Wall Forum 39
Libraries and Technology
Libraries have endured through centries of technological advances. Now more than ever, our lives are changing in surprising ways and at an alarming rate. Data comes to us in a seemingly endless stream, a constant chatter without heirarchy. Today’s libraries must maintain their places as the bellwether for information and meaning. First, today’s library provides the portal to these vast information resources in urban and rural areas. Second, today’s library are respositories to the local and regional stories that tell our collective history. Lastly, as a nexus in any community, it is at the library where this information and data is given order and context. Today’s library provides heirarchy and significance. It provides the place where we come as individuals and communities for meaning and import.
Seaboard Popular Library 41
Children’s Library 42
Children’s Library 43
John Jermain Memorial Library Sag Harbor, New York Opening Fall 2014
This project restores an existing Hamptons village library, and provides a new addition that doubles its size. The old Beaux Arts library is formal, monumental and regular in plan. Constructed with limestone and hard-burnt red brick, its geometry and over-scaled mass dominates the largely clapboard-constructed residential setting in which it is placed. In contrast, the new addition bends into the circumstances of its site, and although informal and asymmetrical - constructed in stone, glass and steel - it has the markings of a temple.
John Jermain Memorial Library (continued)
Ridgefield Library Ridgefield, Connecticut Completed 2014 LEED equivalent
Set in a park-like setting on a bucolic small town main street, the original Ridgefield Library, built in 1903, is red brick, Beaux-Arts, and diminutive yet monumental. Behind the 1903 building, a series of additions constructed in three phases from the 1950’s to the 1980’s, deferred in material and overall scale to the original. In poor condition, too small and too inflexible to incorporate the media, activities, programs, and expectations of today, the Library decided on renewal. All the additions were demolished and replaced with a new addition that doubles the size of the library. The original building has been restored. There are now many points of entry - from Main Street, a side street, parking lot and lower parking lot. All lead directly to a new ‘Third Place’ in Ridgefield, a commons that is a place for new media, conversation, and service, a place where all the components of the library intersect. Large areas of glass enable views in and out, so that the townscape becomes part of the interior architecture.
Ridgefield Library (continued)
Ridgefield Library (continued)
Yale University Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library Renovation In association with HBRA Architects New Haven, Connecticut Opening Summer 2016
The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale (BRBL)is an architectural icon and its 500,00 rare books and over one million volumes make it one of the most important research facilities of its kind in the world. The building was originally designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore Owings and Merrill in 1960 for roughly 25 staff and a modest level of acquisition of rare material. Today the Beinecke has close to 90 staff members and acquires roughly 12,000 printed items, 1,000 linear feet of archives and 1,000 individual manuscripts annually. At age 50, BRBL is in need of substantial building envelope remediation as well as full mechanical, plumbing, electrical, security and fire protection system replacement along with programmatic / space utilization changes.
Bieneke Library (continued)
The changes reflect the importance of research, teaching, consultation and visibility as primary functions and the understanding that the library, at the heart of Yale’s campus is central to Yale’s educational and research mission. The BRBL Comprehensive Renovation will include full replacement of building systems, the creation of 2 new classrooms, as well as a reconfiguration of back-of-house administration spaces and modifications necessary for fire and lifesafety and ADA code compliance. Beinecke’s original superbly designed and executed mid-century modern interiors will be preserved and refurbished. New systems will be invisibly inserted into the existing building fabric with utmost care to maintain the aesthetic integrity of this unique architectural landmark.
Selected Completed Libraries
Ferguson Library Stamford, Connecticut
Eugene M. and Christine E. Lynn Library Lynn University Boca Raton, Florida
Darien High School Library Darien, Connecticut
Jewish Religious Center and Library Williams College Williamstown, Massachusetts
Westport Public Library Westport, Connecticut
Jonathan Edwards College Library Yale University New Haven, Connecticut
Guangzhou Library Guangzhou, China Competition Entry
Guadalajara Public Library Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico Competition Entry
Sterling Law School Library Yale University New Haven, Connecticut
Fairfield Library Fairfield, Connecticut
Learning Commons East Rock School New Haven, Connecticut
Learning Commons North Branford Intermediate School North Branford, Connecticut
Our Philosophy
As architects, we believe that what we make can improve the lives of people. We want to realize the idea of a better, richer place, made palpable through the shaping of space, place, form, and climate. The places we make reflect our affection for ordinary human interchange and commerce, and for what lies beneath. People need to belong to something larger, to make connections with others and the world, and to make order out of chaos. So the architecture they inhabit needs to represent something larger than either the individual or the group, yet provide places where they can both be themselves and recognize the social and cultural structures that surround them.
Design Process
Team Structure An open office environment supports our ‘studio’ style organization, with staff grouped into teams supporting principals-in-charge to address project challenges in a flexible manner - delivering talent where needed, when needed, with efficiency and effectiveness. We add consultants to the team as each project progresses to provide the right engineering and specialty expertise for the task.
Consensus Building We listen. We meet regularly with stake-holders to gather essential project information and to assist with decision making, building the essential consensus to move the project forward to completion. Our communication and coordination skills achieve success with complex constellations of constituency groups and in demanding regulatory environments.
Building Information Modeling - BIM Newman Architects was an early adopter of 3-D Building Information Modeling to support our design process. We use BIM for all projects, enhancing our ability to study a variety of project alternatives quickly, to monitor project scope and cost, to improve coordination and reduce conflicts, and to support enhanced project visualization. With MEPF systems coordinated in 3-D, our BIM models have reduced contractor bids, construction clashes during construction and anticipated construction costs.
Integrated Delivery We use our leadership in 3-D design to support the construction process. We are participating in the development of new practices in the delivery of architectural projects, collaborating with construction managers at all phases of design, bidding, and construction, utilizing BIM as the common platform for communication of intention and realization.
Design Visualization We employ a wide range of powerful visualization methods to help our clients and ourselves understand and test design concepts and alternatives, including: physical and virtual modeling, photo-realistic synthetic imaging and fly-over and tour-though animation.
Public Outreach We have developed an extensive repertoire of skills and tools for helping institutions successfully present to the public and to obtain community acceptance of proposed projects.
Cost and Schedule Control We maintain control of cost and schedule through a range of tools and processes. We specify the creative use of testing and mockups to verify feasibility and constructability; early setting and periodic review of project schedules together with the use of Microsoft Project scheduling tools; early setting, benchmark testing, and periodic review of budgets; rigorous and regular risk assessment at each project phase; and BIM systems that export detailed information about scope to guide estimating and procurement. We have also gathered extensive experience with alternative procurement and contractdelivery strategies that can speed schedules and reduce cost, including: fast-track documentation, design-build, early enabling projects, and early-purchasing.
Quality Control We employ an arsenal of quality-control techniques, including: a detailed office design and procedures manual; outside code/regulatory reviews; internal third-party document reviews of our work and that of our consultants at each project phase to ensure correctness, coordination, and constructability; coordination with project CM’s in developing and checking documents; and BIM systems that unify project information in single models and greatly reduce opportunities for conflicts.
300 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511
|
203.772.1990
1054 31st Street NW, Suite 135, Washington, DC 20007 www.newmanarchitects.com Š 2014
|
202.525.2726