Library Experience

LS3P

LIBRARYEXPERIENCE

ENGAGE DESIGN TRANSFOR GATES COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY | GATESVILLE, NC

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SMALL FIRM RELATIONSHIP, LARGE-FIRM EXPERTISE LS3P’s commitment to engaging with our clients, their communities, and the issues they face reflects our passionate investment in client success. We bring the right people to a project and foster engagement among team members and the community, creating a unifying point of departure that opens the path to design free of aesthetic preconceptions or predefined styles. For each market we serve, our professionals use expertise-based, market-specific tools that foster collaboration, creativity and insight across the team and the entire project delivery process. We engage because we believe the problem-solving nature of architecture should inspire and energize all participants.

LS3P is dedicated to design excellence in both experience and form. We see the design process as an opportunity to bring delight, value and meaning beyond client expectations.

Our design work is driven by market-specific expertise and awareness that represents stewardship of resources and the future of our clients and communities. The projects we create allow clients to achieve their goals, whether through transformational spaces, award winning design, operational efficiencies, environmental stewardship or economic sustainability. Our approach to design allows clients to move into the future with greater confidence, vision and speed.

For LS3P, the idea of transformation is a call to advance clients through a process and approach that culminates in better projects and enriched experiences for individuals, organizations and communities. Transformation means that our designs have lasting impact. Clients realize dramatic improvements in capacity, efficiency, effectiveness and enjoyment through the experience and operation of their project. The greatest testament to the success of LS3P’s work goes beyond the organizational, operational and business stewardship we provide—it is in our enduring client relationships.

WANDO MT. PLEASANT LIBRARY MT. PLEASANT, SC This new 40,000 SF library serves the Mount Pleasant and Carolina Park communities, highlighting a connection to the surrounding site through interior, exterior, and landscape design strategies. The interior materials palette references wood, bark, water, natural light, sun, and even growing grass in the Children’s Wing. Clerestory windows allow daylighting throughout, and each wing offers seating along expansive windows with views to nature, trees, and the wetlands beyond. A large outdoor space features a large tree with landscaped berm seating for outdoor gathering or quiet reading.

A children’s wing with a reading oculus, story time room, and pop-out window seats is visible from the library exterior, generating excitement and engagement from the entry as children identify their dedicated space. Other program spaces include an adult wing, young adult wing, café, computers with computer instruction space, meeting and group study rooms, and a large meeting room which is also suitable for public events. An automated Material Handling machine puts state-of-the-art technology front and center, and a self check-out helps to streamline the visitor experience.

RICHLAND LIBRARY SANDHILL BRANCH CHARLOTTE, NC This new Sandhill Branch of the Richland Library is located as part of Richland School District Two’s new Institute of Innovation (R2I2).

LS3P is the designer as part of a design/build team with MB Kahn for this 33,758 SF, 2-story branch. As a component of R2I2, the library will be an integral part of this unique facility that features student learning labs, a community information center, a flexible professional development center, and academic support offices. The center also includes a conference center for workforce development classes or professional workshops for up to 800 people. The facility offers a catering kitchen and an open-area restaurant, which spills onto an outdoor patio.

The first floor of the library opens off of the main building entry and provides an adult/teen area with outdoor reading, as well as, a separate children’s area with their own outdoor reading space and story time room. The adult/teen area has access to a second floor area with additional reading/stack space and meeting and tutor rooms. The second floor also includes a 295-seat lecture hall/auditorium that will be a shared-use space with the library and Richland School District Two.

COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON ADDLESTONE LIBRARY RENOVATIONS CHARLESTON, SC The project was a renovation of the existing Addlestone Library. The purpose was to accommodate the manuscripts, books, and other materials from the SC Historical Society in the 3rd floor special collections, consolidate existing shelving on the 2nd and 3rd floors, add seating areas, incorporate additional AV, provide electronic device charging areas, and make other MEP and finishes modifications as required.

The latest in collegiate and community library designs show that more space is needed for technology integration and group meeting rooms. Books are still there, but access to them is becoming less important as is access to technology, comfortable seating areas, and group learning environments.

The second floor modifications for this project included removing the static shelving in an area approximately 8,100 SF and replacing it with compact shelving and expanded seating. The third floor modifications included removing the static shelving in an area approximately 12,150 SF and replacing it with compact shelving, expanded seating, and a 900 SF flex room that is being used for presentations as well as study rooms. The design included mobile device charging stations, tables with integral power, additional computer kiosks, and outfitting of some spaces with video and presentation technology. Modifications to the archive area included an expanded reading room, modifications to the Audubon Case and other specialty millwork, renovations and additions to the compact shelving in the Vaults, and the addition of two conference rooms.

MADISON MAYODAN LIBRARY MADISON, NC This new sustainable, light-filled library facility serves both the Madison and Mayodan communities as a hub of learning, with public meeting space to help link the two communities together. Located on an infill site near existing commercial uses, the combined branch will offer a shelving capacity for 47,000 multimedia items within the adult, teen, and children’s collections totaling 58,000 volumes.

Along with the media collections, the building program includes a genealogy room, quiet study areas, public computer areas, a meeting room accommodating 75 people, and staff support space. The office for the Director of the Rockingham County Public Library system will be relocated to this new branch.

The building is arranged in 2 sections, with smaller program spaces grouped along the northern side in a lower volume, and a larger collection area occupying the taller south-facing volume. The centrally-located circulation desk gives the staff visual control of the entrance, the adult collection, and the teen and children’s areas.

An adjacent staff workroom and office area facilitates work flow. A meeting room just off the lobby is designed to allow after-hours use while the rest of the building remains secure.

GATES PUBLIC LIBRARY CHARLOTTE, NC The Gates Public Library is a single story wood frame building, with fiber cement cladding and asphalt shingles. The building includes a lobby, project room, library stacks, reading areas, and associated support spaces. A double-height clerestory space provides abundant natural light in the reading rooms, creating a welcoming public space for reading and research.

FUQUAY-VARINA COMMUNITY LIBRARY INTERIOR UPGRADES FUQUAY-VARINA, NC The design work includes minor interior renovations and roof replacement to the existing one-story 3,832 sf library in FuquayVarina, NC. The interior renovation provided new interior finishes, restroom partitions, circulation desk, entry doors, power and data infrastructure, new ceilings and new soft seating for computer users.

WAKE FOREST BRANCH LIBRARY RENOVATION WAKE FOREST, NC This addition and renovation project for an existing library increased reading and study space while accommodating a growing collection.

The new layout expanded the existing lobby in order to create a larger, more open entrance under a new canopy. Various display areas for patrons to browse through new and popular books frame the entry.

The renovated space contains a new, larger circulation desk as well as children’s/youth/young adult collection and reading spaces. The story time area receives natural light from the large existing windows on the northeast side of the space.

The addition includes office space for the Branch Manager and an expanded staff. Renovations include new floor and ceiling finishes, furnishings, and HVAC systems. Restrooms renovations accommodate current accessibility load and new occupant loads, and a new circulation desk provides both storage and flexibility of use.

BLUFFTON LIBRARY BLUFFTON, SC This 25,000 SF freestanding branch library is located in a neotraditional town center in coastal South Carolina. The Lowcountry vernacular of the design features classical massing, tabby stucco walls, and multiple porches. A double-height volume in the center of the library runs from main entrance to rear, creating a single-story building which is aesthetically compatible with the 2-story buildings of the town center.

With clerestory windows and exposed wooden roof trusses, the spacious interior gallery unifies the interior with lounge seating, electronic card catalogue stations, and the circulation and reference desks. The layout locates one major program element at each quadrant surrounding the gallery. These masses at each corner hold adult fiction and non-fiction stacks, a multipurpose community room, and children’s stacks, respectively.

Interior colors and finishes were inspired by colonial homes in the tropics, and include reclaimed antique heart pine flooring, sculpted carpet reminiscent of sisal mats and sand patterns at low tide, and vibrant paint colors. Multiple colors of carpet in the children’s reading room form wave floor patterns. Screened porches offer a spatial experience unique to most library settings: patrons can enjoy their favorite reading material beneath the gentle breeze of a ceiling fan and a traditional sky-blue ceiling, as if they were relaxing on the porch of a Lowcountry inn.

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