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Architects: will bruder+PARTNERS
- Area: 20162 ft²
- Year: 2006
- Photographs: Bill Timmerman
Text description provided by the architects. The new Hercules Public Library is conceived as a community gathering place and a functionally efficient vessel of knowledge and discovery. Rooted in the landscape and traditions of the town and region, the library draws from diverse eastern and western cultures—tied to the climate of courtyard missions, Eastern gardens, and Northern California.
Sited on a raised plinth, the library is a beacon from the freeway, enjoying long vistas from its reading room. The building embraces the street edge and provides a grove for the neighborhood to the east. Its long butterfly rake emerges from the hillside—gesturing to City Hall. This simple form is energized by selective apertures and a serpentine wall, giving a sense of movement on Civic Drive. Walls are vertical brick tile— a warm mosaic of the light and color of the place. At the southwest corner a ‘paper lantern’ of dual-fritted glass sifts daylight to the reading room and glows by night. Below, a glass fireplace shares a hearth with the town.
Visitors arrive at a floating silver canopy, giving onto a soft white interior; acoustic ceilings vault above carpet reminiscent of a forest floor. Directly from entry, the meeting room, conference, and homework center form a suite, secured from the rest of the building, usable after-hours.
The library is organized around a white elliptical ‘sky garden’ with a café and reading areas around a tilted moss bed and magnolia tree. International, fiction, non-fiction, and reference collections flow through the reading room, with study rooms adjacent to the garden. Teens are given their own high-energy space, and a bay window to the grove.
The children’s library is separated from other collections, viewing onto the children’s garden. The deep blue ‘story cone’ transports kids to a magical world with a ‘butterfly shade’ to modulate skylight. The library has been hailed as a success in the community and among librarians, and has given Hercules new cause for civic pride.
