DAVID ADJAYE WINTER PARK LIBRARY & EVENTS CENTER
REINVENTING THE COLONNADE
Winter Park is one of Florida’s inland cities and is located in an area of small lakes where the climate enabled early settlers to cultivate citrus fruit. It is a largely suburban landscape now, but the site is next to a beautiful park. The planting in the park is not very dense, because it is trying to be European; it is laid out round a lake and there are moments when the trees and the light give you a sense of this older, tropical landscape. It is not actually tropical, but it has that atmosphere—the heat and humidity are still there. Seeing the site, I wanted to bring Winter Park residents to the water and, through the design of our building, suggest a relationship to the underlying geography here.
The library and events center were separate in the brief, but we could have developed them as a single building. This is the approach I took in the design of the Aïshti Foundation in Beirut, where we needed to protect a new open space from the coastal highway. In Winter Park I felt that the tropical nature of the site demanded a looser arrangement that would allow for the in-between. For me, the in-between space was everything—how to create a meaningful outside-inside space connecting the different programmes was a major issue. By expressing the brief in separate forms, we were able to focus our attention on exactly what was happening between them.
Making these external spaces involved moderating the climate—by offering shade or shelter from the rain—and setting up engaging relationships between the building and the site. This was about encouraging a type of public architecture where being outside is not seen as a burden, and people can linger, take a seat and reflect on where they are. In Winter Park we started by developing the site as a low podium, forming a belvedere to the landscape. It separated people and cars, and allowed us to develop the external spaces as part of a clustering strategy in which three cubic forms—suggesting inverted pyramids in section—were positioned relative to one another and the edges of the podium. It was important to avoid railings on the podium, as they can institutionalise a project in a way that undermines its purpose, so we designed something more substantial: an over-scaled balustrade that you can sit on and look back at the composition. I’m quite obsessed with this over-scaled balustrading because I like making plinths.
The cluster strategy allowed me to create the kinds of space we see in medieval towns and cities, where you feel both protected and well connected with your surroundings. Our cluster opens up in the direction of the lake, but on the high street there is a deliberate attempt to make a civic presence. The focus here is on the porte-cochere, which presents the idea of the project to the street—a perfectly symmetrical form that gives you the concept for the other buildings as you drive past the site. Protecting the drop-off point, its arches frame perspective views of the larger buildings, which then appear to step aside to reveal the longer view. For residents who walk through the park, the experience is reversed. They are likely to arrive at the Tiedtke Amphitheater, whose grassy steps soften the appearance of the podium when seen from the park. For them, the porte-cochere only comes into view as they pass between the main buildings.
The programme for the events center called for a grand hall and support facilities for a range of gatherings, from conferences to weddings. At a later stage, the mayor asked us to arrange for the roof terrace to be used as an open air restaurant. Our main priority was to focus on the singularity of the grand hall; we wanted to avoid the ground floor being carved up into separate spaces with corridor access. The strategy we developed involved
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WINTER PARK LIBRARY & EVENTS CENTER
WINTER PARK, FLORIDA, USA 2021
A VILLAGE OF KNOWLEDGE
David Adjaye currently has five libraries to his name and made a significant addition to another one. In 2000 he completed a new entrance space to an older library in Folkestone, in the UK. With a café and exhibitions area, and entrance screen designed by artist Chris Ofili, it was intended to update the identity of the older building and encourage more people to use the available services. A few years later, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, he designed two Idea Stores (2004 and 2005), which combined a range of information services with educational spaces for the local community. Taking a similar approach in a different context, he was responsible for two neighbourhood libraries in Washington, DC, (2012). The requirements for the Washington buildings were effectively identical, but their organisation and appearance are specific to their location, embedding them in the areas they serve. In taking the brief for the library and events center in Winter Park, therefore, he had a considerable amount of relevant experience to draw on.
The location for the new project was promising but the wider situation presented some unfamiliar issues. The site is on West Morse Boulevard, at the northwest corner of Martin Luther King Jnr. Park. Centred on Lake Mendsen, a relatively small area of water with an undulating shoreline, the northern section of the park is laid out in a picturesque manner and is freely accessible from the surrounding area. Immediately to the south, a more open area is given over to a variety of sports. It was clear that locating the library and events center close to such a significant community resource would encourage their widest possible use, and being on one of the city’s most important thoroughfares suggested that many people would pass the site on their way to and from the city of Orlando, a short distance to the south. Presenting more of a challenge, Adjaye had not previously experienced Florida’s humid subtropical climate, with warm, wet summers from May to October and cooler, drier winters from October to April. Summer is also the hurricane season.
The site was sufficiently spacious to allow for the library and events center to be in separate buildings and for their positions to be adjusted to address the surrounding conditions. In a very different context, Adjaye had dealt with a similar situation on the site for the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo (2010). Sitting on 150m-wide disc serving as a podium, the sports, residential and office buildings are angled toward the surrounding landscape but present a more continuous façade in the direction of a distant city centre. In Winter Park, to strengthen the relationship with Lake Mendsen, the central section of the site was developed with a low podium, and the library and events center occupy positions that screen the rest of the site from passing traffic while opening up in plan to address the park. The podium also provides accessible
deck space for outdoor activities, particularly in the area of the Tiedtke Amphitheater. A third element, the porte-cochere, completes the composition.
In an earlier project in a tropical climate, the Nkron house in Ghana (2012), Adjaye had employed deep verandas to protect the interior from direct sunlight and the external walls from downpours, but dealing with a public building in Florida he took a different approach. He wanted to see if he could avoid making “a form with sub forms, as in a building with a canopy structure”, and instead make “the forms actually become canopy and building”. In Winter Park, “the outer shells splay out very dramatically, and almost touch, and almost create a sense of an interior, because when you look up, you have these slices of sky but you are very much in the shade”. The splay he is referring to is that of the external walls, which lean outward, the solid upper section at a lower angle than the glazing below. On summer days, it is the precast panels that protect the glazing from direct sunlight and extend the area of shade at ground level—or provide shelter from the rain. Nudging the buildings together at certain points extends these benefits across the site. In winter, when the angle of the sun is lower, direct light is reflected off the glass due to the angle of incidence.
Adjaye admits to a preoccupation with differentiating public from commercial buildings, which he sees as being more utilitarian. In his view, public buildings need “to have a certain kind of distinction in their profile so that they really signify to anybody entering that this is a special room for the community”. Carefully scaled to the context, the inverted, pyramidal forms of the library and events center are distinctive in their setting; the embossed shapes in the precast panels recall the arches of a colonnade and the widths of the arched openings below suggest that the interiors are hall-like spaces, easily accessible and open to their surroundings. This reading is underscored by the porte-cochere, whose open sides are an invitation to enter the site. The scale and materiality of the exterior are also engaging, especially the rose colour and embossed surfaces of the precast panels. Taking a lead from the arched openings, Adjaye was interested in some of the interior spaces being vaulted, “to create these beautiful shapes in something everyday, as we believe a library should be”. This was particularly relevant to the events center, and the treatment of the grand hall and the spaces leading to it. Finished in textured acoustic plaster, the ceilings in these spaces are sections of a continuous shell whose geometry matches the curvature of the arched openings.
The arched openings on the long sides of the library are considerably wider than those of the events center. Internally, the more highly specified library spaces are laid out in parallel bands on either side of a central
area—the commons—where the main staircase is located. A corkscrew structure in black steel, it takes its place below a conical rooflight at the centre of the plan. Overall, this arrangement is straight forward to navigate and avoids any sense of hierarchy in relation to the location of individual spaces. These qualities, however, are complemented in a dramatic fashion by the double-height spaces on each face of the building. With projecting galleries at first-floor level, they are the primary shared spaces in the library, and the arched openings frame sequential views of the urban context, Martin Luther King Jnr. Park, Lake Mendsen, Tiedtke Amphitheater, the events center and the porte-cochere.
Comparing the Winter Park library with ones he had designed previously, Adjaye has noticed a gradual shift from an emphasis on “the infrastructure of knowledge to the space of knowledge”. He sees the Idea Stores as being more concerned with infrastructure, presenting the available services as a series of clearly defined options. The neighbourhood libraries in Washington, DC, were significantly different in including community meeting rooms but not teaching spaces. In Winter Park, the range of interests and activities the library supports is far wider than in the earlier projects, and there is an understanding that its role may change over time in response to the community. Looking at how the library and events center work together, Adjaye’s view is that “knowledge and community facilities are being brought together in a cluster, to make a sort of little village, a hamlet of knowledge” on the edge of the park. Separate from university campuses, and at a time when other social programmes are being run down, he sees the Winter Park example as a prototype for future libraries.
PETER ALLISON
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All quotations are from Sir David Adjaye, Winter Park, USA, a presentation at The World Around Summit, 10 February 2021.
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WINTER PARK LIBRARY & EVENTS CENTER
WINTER PARK, FLORIDA, USA
2021
Area 5,184 sqm / 55,800 sqft
Category
Civic, Culture, Commercial
Design Architect
Adjaye Associates
Architect of Record
HuntonBrady Architects
Client
The City of Winter Park
Civil Engineer
Land Design
Envelope Consultant
Thornton Tomasetti
Fire Protection Engineer + Audio Visual & Security
TLC Engineering for Architecture
Mechanical, Structural, Plumbing Engineer
TLC Engineering for Architecture
Food Service Design
Phil Bean
General Contractor
Brasfield & Gorrie
Landscape Architect
Land Design
Acoustical Design
Gary Seibein
Owner’s Representative
The Pizzutti Companies
Signage Consultant
Poblocki
Images
© Dror Baldinger
Dust jacket and 08-09
© Ivane Katamashvili
WINTER PARK LIBRARY & EVENTS CENTER 63
FEATURED WORK
PUBLICATION
DATA INFORMATION
COLLECTION
AMAG LONG BOOKS
VOLUME
Long Book 07
TITLE
David Adjaye
Winter Park Library & Events Center
ISBN 978-989-53330-8-0
PUBLICATION
DATE 2023 January
EDITOR AND GENERAL MANAGER
Ana Leal
COLLECTION CONCEPT Tomás Lobo
EDITORIAL TEAM
Ana Leal, architect Carolina Feijó, designer Filipa Ferreira, designer João Soares, architect Tomás Lobo, designer
PRINTING LusoImpress
LEGAL DEPOSIT 480255/21
RUN NUMBER 1000 numered copies
PUBLISHER AND OWNER AMAG publisher
VAT NUMBER
513 818 367
CONTACTS
hello@amagpublisher.com
www.amagpublisher.com
DAVID ADJAYE
Sir David Adjaye OBE is a prolific Ghanaian-British architect.
In 2000, he founded Adjaye Associates, which operates globally with studios in Accra, London, and New York. His most well known commission to date, The National Museum of African American History & Culture opened on the National Mall in Washington DC in 2016.
Adjaye is the 2021 RIBA Royal Gold Medal recipient. Personally approved by Her Majesty the Queen, the Royal Gold Medal is considered one of the highest honors in British architecture for a significant contribution to the field internationally.
PETER ALLISON
Peter Allison is a curator and writer. He has collaborated with David Adjaye since the 1990s, and edited several books on this work.
