The building’s architecture frames this activity with spaces that stir the mind.NIC LEHOUX
A public library is a place to escape into other realms. It’s also a place to connect with the community and the wider world. Once we’re all able to leave home again, I think many of us will want to embark on both sorts of journeys.
And the Springdale branch of the Brampton Public Library is the sort of place we’ll want to be. When I walked through the doors – just before the library closed temporarily at the onset of COVID-19 – the building revealed itself as a lively social space. There are sunlit study rooms, a children’s area, desktops ready for gaming, and comfy chairs in which to read the Punjabi Tribune.
The building’s architecture, by Toronto-based RDHA, frames this activity with spaces that stir the mind. A ribbon of shimmering sheet steel and striped glass wraps all this activity, and the building caps it off with round skylights that coax the sky inside. Both spare and welcoming, it’s a building that invites intellectual inquiry and hanging out.
All that glass links the building with what’s outside.NIC LEHOUX
That combination is what libraries aspire to, and RDHA have established themselves as leaders in delivering it. Their 25,000-square-foot Springdale branch, completed in 2019, is the latest evidence. It recently won an Interior Design Award from the American Library Association, a prestigious biennial prize that recognizes excellence in the U.S. and Canada.
It embodies the new library agenda of clarity. “Libraries have reduced their physical collections, and that’s opened up the question: how can they use their spaces and what kind of new services can be provided?” says Tyler Sharp, design director at RDHA and the lead architect of the building.
This mix of the literal and metaphorical is a cliché these days: glass equals an openness to ideas. But here it works, because the institution is committed to the ideal, and because Sharp and his colleagues are skilled and creative designers.
All that glass – 70 per cent of the building’s facades – links the building with what’s outside. The surroundings are largely generic: an arterial road and a strip mall. But there’s also a new park, designed by the architects and NAK Design Strategies, with a series of oversized letters (a bench, a fountain, and other functions) that spell out the word IMAGINE.
Mirroring the city of Brampton, about half of patrons are immigrants, and about half of those are from India.NIC LEHOUX
The architecture gestures to the outdoors in more subtle ways. The glass is patterned with strips of opaque white ceramic; these have been arranged through computation, with the help of generative-design expert Brady Peters, to provide shade where it’s needed.
And the building gets dirty, too: Its roof rises up in a great oval mound, covered with earth and little sedum plants. At the centre of the mound is a deep, round skylight – what architects call an oculus – that scoops in sunlight and scatters it across the interior.
Another oculus caps the children’s area. This one is surrounded by a sinuous mass of drywall and plaster that extrudes down almost to the green-carpeted floor. The resulting space is a sort of cocoon between the sky and the building – a magical place for storytime.
When little ones arrive, they come with moms, uncles and grandfathers who have their own needs. According to Springdale’s branch manager, Lexi Black, the library serves a catchment area of 114,000 people. Mirroring the city of Brampton, about half of patrons are immigrants, and about half of those are from India. Multigenerational households are common, and “our patrons take learning extremely seriously,” Black says.
After hours on Saturday and Sunday, once the little kids have gone home, the branch remains open for quiet study time.NIC LEHOUX
The collection of books and periodicals, including half a dozen South Asian languages, caters to them all. So do the librarians, who occupy a circular desk at the centre of the library. From here they can look across the polished-concrete floors, down a shallow ramp to study space, or help out the patrons on the nearby computers with research, professional exams or a job application.
All this has stopped for at least a few weeks, thanks to the coronavirus. But under normal circumstances, “It’s a hustling, bustling library,” Black says. The interiors of concrete, back-painted glass and polished white cabinetry bounce sound around a bit, but the curving “ceilingscape,” as Sharp describes it, helps mute the echoes somewhat.
In this respect as in others, the building strikes a balance between a meeting place and retreat. Partly the library manages this tension (between harried university students and jubilant toddlers) through timing. After hours on Saturday and Sunday, once the little kids have gone home, the branch remains open for quiet study time.
As the sun fades within the oculus, the 16 ball pendants that hang within it shine brighter. It’s as if a constellation has descended to hang out here for a bit, across the street from a Shoppers Drug Mart but firmly in the realm of ideas.
NIC LEHOUX/Supplied
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