WINTER PARK LIBRARY & EVENTS CENTER

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

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

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

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 is a curator and writer. He has collaborated with David Adjaye since the 1990s, and edited several books on this work.