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The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced that the David Bishop Skillman Library is one of nine recipients of the 2007 AIA/ALA Library Building Award.
Presented biennially, the awards celebrate the finest examples of library design by architects licensed in the U.S. and are voted on by a jury panel consisting of members of the AIA and the American Library Association (ALA). Other 2007 winners include public institutions, high school libraries, and Bill Clinton’s Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark. The library will be officially recognized at the 2007 annual ALA conference in Washington, D.C. June 22-26.
Skillman received the award for its $22 million expansion and renovation project, in which “the new additions were scaled in proportion, height, and width to reflect the fabric of the eclectic buildings surrounding them, knitting together significant campus spaces.”
The project, completed in 2005 by Ann Beha Architects of Boston, added 28,555 square feet and transformed almost every aspect of the interior and exterior. The building’s new and enhanced features include instruction rooms with computers and network connectivity, a formal reading room and a periodicals reading area overlooking the Quad, a special collections suite with expanded space for working with rare books and manuscripts, and a digital media lab with high-end technology. Lafayette celebrated the project’s completion with a rededication ceremony April 1, 2005.
According to an AIA news release,“Many colleges are currently facing the daunting challenge of renovating and expanding libraries built in the 1960s and 70s during a pre-technology era focused largely on protecting paper media and providing for private study. Here, the architects transformed such a library into a modern center that reflects a new era of openness and connectivity to its community and the world.”
The library previously received the AIA’s 2006 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture and the Boston Society of Architects’ top award, the Honor Award for Design Excellence, as well as its Higher Education Facilities Design Award.
1 Comment
To be awarded is not the main purpose for building such a great library, as you post here: “That reflects a new era of openness and connectivity to its community and the world.”skillman library deserved this award anyway. congratulations and I also hope it can have a bright future.
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