Updated Library Design Stresses Neighborhood Themes

Materials Prices Boost Bid Results

By Lia Steakley

The library boom continues in Seattle. A year after the city's award-winning Central Library opened, 15 library branches have been completed, five more are under construction and another seven will be finished by 2007.

The citywide overhaul includes constructing new branches in burgeoning neighborhoods, replacing aging structures and renovating and expanding branches.

Seattle's "Libraries For All" building program price tag is an estimated $280 million, which includes design, construction, and furnishing costs for all 27 branches and the new 362,987-sq.-ft. Central Library. Voters bankrolled the majority of the ambitious capital plan in 1998 when they approved a $196.4 million bond measure and the Seattle Public Library raised an additional $82 million in private funds to complete the projects. At the time, the bond was the largest library improvement measure passed in the nation's history, said Alex Harris, Seattle Public Library capital program director.

Seattle library trustees chose branch designs incorporating green building practices. "We want these buildings to last," said Frank Coulter, Seattle Public Library program manager. "We don't want the branches to look old in 20 years so we chose a lot of materials for the long term."

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Architects and construction firms varied for each project to ensure the branches were unique and reflective of the neighborhoods they served. The result was 27 branches influenced by the residents who frequent them.

But some of the more unusual design aspects had contractors scratching their heads.

For example the expanded 13,500-sq.-ft. Greenwood Branch opened in January with front-door seating fashioned from massive Montana boulders and a patterned floor concealing a radiant heat system, both of which proved to be quite a job for Seattle-based W.G. Clark Construction Co.

Seattle architecture firm Buffalo Design chose a random pattern with portions of carpet, vinyl and integrally colored concrete material for the $4.9 million building's floor. "The contractors were trying to pour concrete and also trying to strike these pattern lines in the concrete," Coulter said.

Under part of the floor is a radiant heat system. "It was a complicated floor structure," said Howie Kellogg, a project manager with W.G. Clark. "We've probably done three slabs like that out of hundreds of projects."

The tricky part came before the roof was fastened and Seattle rain posed the threat of water becoming trapped in the system. The complex slab design meant the building wasn't really watertight, so W.G. Clark used electrical conduit sleeves as weep holes to drain the water trapped in the sandwich slab.

Once contractors conquered the floor design, the next challenge was the $7 million building's front entrance. A 30-ft.-tall aluminum and glass curtain drops from the roof around the front door, wrapping around massive boulders that provide decoration and seating.

The hole left for the rocks, which are stacked in layers similar to a wedding cake, was 3 ft. tall and 16 ft. long. Again, sealing the design from rain elements was a problem.

"We were concerned because the rock penetrated the exterior glass curtain wall," Kellogg said. "Concealing all the joints from the rock so the water didn't migrate from the outside was a problem."

Eventually, W.G. Clark found a solution but Kellogg admitted that he "spent a lot of time fussing and figuring it out." In the end, a short concrete wall was poured to waterproof the base of the stacked boulders and then custom fabricated sheet metal was installed to seal areas between the upper boulder and the aluminum curtain wall. All of the joints were then sealed extensively with caulk, said Kellogg.

About 8 mi. south of the Greenwood library is the new $5.4 million Beacon Hill branch, which was designed by Carlson Architects of Seattle and opened last summer. Built by Steele Corp. of Edmonds, Wash., the 10,800-sq.-ft. building has sweeping roof forms to allow natural light, a large canopied stone entry plaza and garden areas.

"The roof of the library is composed of two overlapping curved forms that are linked by a clerestory window. The curve of the roof is formed by lapped panels that create facets on the metal roof," said David Kunselman, Seattle Public Library project manager.

The unusual roof required the contractor to work with a steel fabricator to produce one piece of steel with compound curves going in two directions. The roof creates a pavilion that floats above glass walls. The walls are interrupted by rooms that are playfully, arranged like slate clad boxes that pass through the glass.

Similar to the Greenwood site, the Beacon Hill branch's floor also required creativity. The floor was raised 18 in. to provide flexibility for future configurations of the library floor, space for cabling and room for circulating air. Concrete panels were put down and then covered with carpet squares, allowing library staff to pull up the panels and reconfigure the floor outlets.

But the design couldn't bear the weight of heavy machinery, so some jobs such as interior painting and installation of light fixtures had to be completed before the floor was installed, Kunselman said.

Kunselman is currently overseeing construction on the new Northgate branch, which is slated to be completed in June and was designed by Seattle's Miller/Hull Partnership. The more than $8 million project includes a 10,000-sq.-ft. library, 20,000-sq.-ft. community center and 1.67-acre park between the two buildings.

Absher Construction Co. of Puyallup broke ground on the branch this spring, which was later than originally scheduled because of project costs increases. The first bids were over budget and so the library board reworked the project's scope and secured additional funding to avoid reducing the branch's size.

The Northgate branch was one of three projects that have been rebid because of escalating material costs. Other branches with bids beyond budget were the new Montlake branch, which was more than $500,000 over; and the Southwest branch expansion project that came in $1.26 million over budget. The Douglass-Truth Branch, was about $800,000 over budget but the library board decided to increase its budget rather than rebid the project.

A unique aspect of the Northgate library's design is a large storm water vault below the park. Storm water from the property will be collected, filtered and stored in the underground chamber to be used to irrigate the property. None of the other branches, and few buildings in the city, has such a storm water system.

Another sustainable building feature is that 90 percent of the material from the buildings demolished at the Northgate site will be recycled or reused. "The challenge for the contractor is to demolish these buildings, sort them and make sure they are not going into the waste stream but are being used onsite or will be recycled," Kunselman said.

The asphalt will be ground and placed underneath the future asphalt, and the former concrete footings will also be crushed and used as fill below future footings.

Next for the city is a new 5,000-sq.-ft. South Park branch designed by Johnston Architects of Seattle and scheduled for completion next year. The $2.7 million building will have a collection capacity of 18,700 books and materials, a special area for children, computer workstations and instructional spaces. The new library is paid for through a $6 million Opportunity Fund, which was part of the 1998 bond and pays for unanticipated neighborhood library capital needs for underserved areas of Seattle.