Archives

1. L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library

   Design guiding principles for this library building transformation included creating a destination for the region that serves as the heart of the city and linking the building to the Eau Claire River and downtown civic facilities. Stakeholder-directed improvements include a 200-seat program space, an expanded children’s area, a mix of meeting rooms, quiet spaces for study, space for tweens and teens, and a learning lab. Inclusive design elements include aspects that support neurodiversity, gender-inclusive toilet rooms, and comfort rooms.

   A makerspace called the Dabble Box and innovation lab spaces provide access to specialized technology, teaching kitchen equipment, and art equipment to support maker sessions, STEAM-based education, and nutrition literacy. All major building systems, dating back to 1975, were replaced with more efficient and sustainable systems, including a geothermal heating and cooling system that runs below the plaza. Redesigned vertical circulation provides more intuitive wayfinding and better visual connections between all four floors.

2. Missoula Public Library

   The new building houses four other community organizations (MCAT, Families First Learning Lab, SpectrUM Discovery Area, and the University of Montana Living Lab) to create a library, museum, and science and community center that blends Missoula’s rich heritage with world-class innovations all under one roof. The design process involved an intensive week-long visioning session with leadership from the library and partner organizations to establish project goals and guiding principles. The main floor offers a marketplace with a cafe, retail store, new library materials, and the audiovisual collection; a makerspace; MCAT’s high tech production studio, equipment check-out services, and sound booths; a teens’ area; and the University of Montana Living Lab. Focused on children, families, and play, the second floor houses the Hank and Nancy Harrington Children’s Library, Families First Learning Lab, SpectrUM Disovery Area, and a mix of collaborative learning spaces shared by the partner organizations. The third floor includes a demonstration kitchen, reference services, fiction and nonfiction collections, a business center, and genealogy center. The top floor provides spaces for public engagement and gathering and access to an exterior patio.

   MSR Design served as design architect and interior designer, and A&E Design was the architect of record.

    

    

3. RIDC Mill 19

   Mill 19 is a living emblem of Pittsburgh’s transformation from its industrial steel-making past to a future of sustainable advanced manufacturing. In a bold approach to adaptive reuse, the design viscerally interweaves new space for the city’s robotics industry within the industrial ruins of a decommissioned steel rolling mill. A post-industrial promenade welcomes the public through a linked series of compelling exterior experiences framed between the monumental 1,360 foot-long existing steel superstructure and three multi-tenant tech buildings sited within. The Mill 19 project accomplishes impressive levels of experiential, sustainable performance and public access within the financial constraints of a speculative core and shell commercial development.

4. Fayetteville Public Library

   This expansion to a community library, originally designed by MSR Design, redefines the traditional public library model, providing enhanced educational opportunities, services, and innovative programming for all ages. The expansion follows the sloping topography sited below the existing building to create a three-sided courtyard with local plantings that serves as a new public gathering space.

   The addition includes a 700-seat, flexible event center that serves as a full-function auditorium; additional meeting and group study spaces; greatly expanded youth services; an innovation center with audio recording studio, video recording studio, editing suites, virtual reality studio, photography studio, a simulation lab, and a fabrication and robotics lab; an art and movement room; an expanded children’s library; a private teens-only lounge and gaming center; a green roof; a commercial teaching kitchen for cooking classes and food production; and a deli that serves the community.

5. Louisville Free Public Library South Central Regional Library

   This library in the trees is the second of three new regional libraries to be added to the Louisville Free Public Library system as part of the facilities master plan prepared by MSR Design. A delicate insertion into a grove of trees, the building stands out in a region of Kentucky where clearcutting sites is standard practice. Tree preservation, daylight harvesting, and energy conservation serve as design guiding principles. The design team oriented the library on the site to take advantage of forest preservation, optimal solar access, and stormwater management. Areas for reading and gathering extend into the landscape through planned contemplative views and seating in the parking grove. Certified LEED-NC v. 3 Gold, the project includes a range of energy-saving measures.

   MSR Design collaborated with architect JRA Architects and landscape architect MKSK.

    

    

6. Haverford College Visual Culture, Arts & Media (VCAM) Building

   Haverford College’s new Visual Culture, Arts, and Media (VCAM) building repurposes a gym built in 1900 into a vibrant 21st-century learning environment. The design preserves the old gym’s central, two-story vaulted space, while inserting a three-story, object study/media production classroom and creating a new living room for the campus. All primary program spaces open onto and animate the heart of the building—a three-story remnant of an indoor running track—that now functions as campus family room with kitchen, community table, display area, projection wall, and movable furniture. Classrooms, labs, offices, and presentation spaces encourage trans-disciplinary collaboration and experimentation in digital media, film, 3D fabrication, and material culture. The project is certified LEED-NC v. 3 Gold.

7. Louisville Free Public Library Northeast Regional Library

   Located adjacent to a historic house and landscape, Louisville Free Public Library’s third regional library brings service to an outlying region of the city. Conceived as a pavilion in a park, the building offers sweeping views of the park and historic site. It features a special technology-driven classroom, highly flexible reading room, makerspace with audiovisual lab and demonstration kitchen, and a college corner in the teens’ area. A column-free interior, multi-function access flooring, and rooms enclosed by movable furnishings support adaptability to meet perpetually evolving library demands and ambitions. Sustainable design strategies contributing to the building’s LEED-NC v.3 Gold certification include siting the building to take advantage of natural daylight and a geothermal mechanical system, among numerous others. Circulation for the first month of operation broke the library system’s previous record by 25%.

   MSR Design collaborated with architect JRA Architects and landscape architect MKSK.

8. Norman Public Library Central

   Together with the new Norman Public Library East Library, the new central library furthers the city’s “Norman Forward” citizen-initiated goals to fund and create quality of life projects for the community. It serves as a new town hall with shared community spaces, conference rooms, a technology lab, a genealogy research workspace, and a multipurpose room that can accommodate a range of events. The new library provides highly flexible spaces for collaborative learning, new education models, digital literacy, and information sharing, including a makerspace. Sky and plinth design elements represent the intersection of Oklahoma’s iron rich topography and open sky of the prairie. The courtyard features a specially commissioned sculpture entitled “Unbound” created by London artist Paul Cocksedge. Registered for LEED-NC v.3 Silver certification, the project features a range of passive design strategies, including a visible stormwater management system with interpretive signage to educate visitors about the process, optimized daylighting and shading, and orientation of the building on the site to mitigate solar gain.

    

9. Tulsa City-County Central Library

   The design team targeted three primary goals for the project: 1. Become a downtown destination that contributes to renewal of the urban core. 2. Create a library building that responds to 21st-century library needs. 3. Be generative, positively impacting library users, the surrounding community, the library industry, and the environment.

   To achieve these goals, the design team crafted a building program and architectural response that includes a revitalized, humanized civic plaza and new public garden for programming and community events; a clear, secure entry sequence in which all ways of entering the library collect into one main lobby area; a new parking garage; an interactive education center; a maker space; and a destination children’s library with direct access to the garden. Sustainable measures include improved thermal performance of the entire building envelope, daylight harvesting and lighting strategies, and the first rooftop photovoltaic solar array installed on a Tulsa building.

10. Workshop

    Converting a 100-year-old foundry in the heart of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District into an innovative, multipurpose environment presented unique challenges. MSR worked closely with the start-up creative agency to help realize its future mission and purpose through the design process. The open, flexible layout accommodates everything from workplace and making/prototyping activities to exhibitions and weddings.

    Demolition and construction revealed treasures from past use, such as hidden fire doors, an underground tunnel, and pit. The design integrates these elements throughout as reminders of the building’s rich history. Massive, custom steel-and-glass entries open onto a steel deck, providing a porous connection to the street and neighborhood. The highly-flexible and ever-evolving space simultaneously accommodates the client’s original intent for the space (workplace) and new and unexpected uses (event space).