Toronto Public Library’s new 14,500 sq. ft. branch makes manifest an idea that dates back to 1969: build a library for Scarborough’s Civic Centre. The project’s design reorganizes and reorients the precinct’s disengaged and outmoded site plan relationships by creating a welcoming, vital point of community engagement, inside and out, for a burgeoning, highly diverse population.
A critical design challenge was creating a landscape-building relationship that would reimagine the library as a porous, garden foreground to the existing, monumental Civic Centre beyond. As a gesture of openness, glass replaces the traditionally solid boundary walls that enclose many libraries. The overarching expression of the building is, instead, the series of four gently sloping roof planes that create an elevated garden landscape resting on a series of crossing column clusters. Because the roofs are sloped, the greenery is simultaneously visible from the street, from the elevated walkways of the Civic Centre, from the interiors through clerestory windows and, one day, from the tops of nearby future residential developments.
The project establishes clear pedestrian connections within the Scarborough Civic Centre Precinct to strengthen the public realm. Scarborough’s Civic Centre Precinct was conceived in the late 1960s, reflecting that era’s urban thinking. The site for the library is the man-made sloped embankment immediately south of Raymond Moriyama’s landmark Civic Centre, which was built in 1973 as an “object in the landscape,” and which rests almost 4.5 meters above the adjacent street level.
The library functions as the new public face to the Precinct’s southern entry point, interfacing with a number of newly established pedestrian connections that are instrumental in reorganizing the entire site: a new Civic park, a tree- lined boulevard along the street, a new accessible entranceway to the existing Civic Centre beyond, and a ramping garden connection to the existing circumferential walkway leading to the Precinct’s northern entry points. The library’s glazed facade and wide overhanging roof planes animate the street edge along Borough Drive, creating a pedestrian boulevard that tapers to the main entrance of the library.
The roof incorporates notable sustainable features. The largest roof overhangs on the south and west facades to provide passive solar shading to mitigate cooling loads for the library in summer months. The clerestory windows help enable the library to rely on natural light during the day for most of the year in concert with sensors and controls to use artificial light only for zones that require it. The storm water management design for the site relies on diverting excess water from each green roof and directing it below grade via rainwater leaders to storm water infiltration beds for containment and eventual percolation back into the water table.
The vegetation on the green roof is exemplary for its use of local plantings to improve biodiversity. Its utilizes rocks and plants found in the Litle Bluestem Alvar Grassland found along shorelines of Southern Ontario.
TPL’s goal was to increase use, evolve with changing technology and serve the needs of the growing neighbourhood. The design solution is an open and flexible floor space with movable data and electrical connections and stacks on wheels that can be easily rearranged as required. This flexibility has enabled the library to better facilitate the over 83,000 visitors, 2,200 new registrations and 150,000 circulations of library material that it has already had since opening.
The Library is the first significant public building to be realized in Scarborough’s Civic Centre Precinct in over 25 years. The project kick-starts a new wave of development aimed at urbanizing the ‘super-block,’ and creates a strong community hub, with an equally well-conceived public realm, that the surrounding community will enjoy for years to come.
Check out our BLOAAg article for more information.
Publish Date : 2021/Jul/13