Adams Street Branch Library
ADAMS STREET BRANCH LIBRARY
NADAAA
AREA
10,000 sqft - 25,000 sqft
BUDGET
$10M - 50M
YEAR
2021
LOCATION
Boston, MA, United States
TYPE
Educational › Library
The completion of the Adams Library represents a long and deep collaboration with the Dorchester community.
Launched as a programming study in 2016, the Boston Public Library, the Boston Public Facilities Department, and the design team explored a dozen layouts through a series of iterations, inviting the public for their input and imagination.
Many important ideas were discovered through this process, yet some were right before our eyes to be celebrated.
Namely, an oak tree that has stood on the north end of the site for many decades has crowned the central vista of Adams Street.
The entire team came together around this important natural feature to ensure its centrality into the future, creating a public reading area for many decades to come.
Of course, there are many organizational aspects of the library that were born out of the community dialogue as well:
the tri-axial layout of adults, teens, and children for their respective areas of interaction; the visual communication between all sections of the library; and the transparency between the library and the street to create a porous accessible threshold.
