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The centre of the action

The possibility of building a new, communal, government-funded facility in Halifax occurs once in a blue moon. In times where money doesn’t come easily, the idea of creating a central library becomes more significant not only for an evolving city but also for the future generations. “This is the most important public building to be built in the downtown in a generation. I think it will help develop a greater sense of civic pride,” says George Cotaras, lead architect with Fowler Bauld & Mitchell and a member of the team behind the library’s design.

From the beginning, the architects and Halifax Public Libraries CEO Judith Hare stressed the importance of making the library initiative a collaborative effort. Two prominent architectural firms will be working together in the design process and a series of five different public consultations were set-up to gain public input. Fowler Bauld & Mitchell (FBM), an Atlantic Canadian architectural firm that has existed since 1917, will be partnering with respected European firm, Schmidt Hammer Lassen to create a comprehensive design for the new central library.

Cotaras explains that seeking out their European architectural partners was an important decision for the library’s building process. “We had the local experience but we didn’t have the international experience doing central libraries,” he says. “Morten’s firm on the other hand has done major libraries internationally so it was a natural fit. We sought them out, they sought us out for expertise on both sides.”

Morten Schmidt, the design director and one of Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s founding partners, agrees that the collaboration with Fowler Bauld & Mitchell is a great fit for the project at-hand because both Halifax and Scandinavia are democratic countries that share similar surroundings, climate and cultural backgrounds. Schmidt Hammer Lassen is well-known for having built beautifully structured landmarks such as the Royal Library in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Cultural Center of Greenland in Nuuk and the Halmstad Library in Sweden.

At this stage of the game, we are bringing the local knowledge of the region and the urban context that we’re working in,” Cotaras says. [Schmidt Hammer Lassen] are bringing their library and international experience; they will be designing the building with us only participating at a smaller scale. Then as the design progresses, we’ll step in and start working with them closely and then when we get into construction phases, we will have much heavier influence in that and they will still be partaking in that process right till the end so it’s very much a collaboration from beginning to end.”
The collaboration effort goes beyond those teams. In a series of public consultations, everyone is invited while conducting focus groups work to reach specific demographics such as cultural organizations, veterans, parents of young children, First Nations people and new immigrants.

The potential of the new central library to help transform the downtown is huge. Conversations and meetings surrounding the project are filled with high hopes that the building will truly be a reflection of the city and cater to various needs that may not have been previously met by the aging Spring Garden Road Memorial Library. Haligonians got their first look at design concepts at a public-consultation session in late August. While the overall design is unique, it borrows many elements from the architects’ past projects. “The new library will radiate openness, transparency and informality,” Schmidt says.

“This current Spring Garden Road library does not do that at all, it’s completely solid, enclosed, and you have that formal door. The new building will be the opposite.”

The new central library “will reflect the latest thinking on libraries” and have the ability to grow with the city and its people over a period of time. Flexible and adaptable spaces inside will enable future trends and developments to be easily implemented and allow for areas to be used by a variety of people in different ways whether it may be four people sitting around a table for a chat or a group of eight that want to work on a play together.

In the first round of public consultations, Susan Fitzgerald, the project’s architect and interior designer, explained that the new central library’s location at the corner of Queen Street and Spring Garden Road will be “an incredibly meaningful site for downtown that works like a juncture between different moments in the city.” Such moments include the harbour, the waterfront, the downtown business district, Dalhousie University’s Sexton Campus (which houses the School of Architecture and Engineering) and “one of the most dynamic shopping streets and commercial districts in Canada,” Spring Garden Road.

As the new facility will create a huge mark for the city, public consultations become highly valuable for the building and design process. All throughout 2008, initial public consultations were conducted to get a sense of the particular things people wanted the new library to have and what they liked and disliked about the current library. The public consultations in 2008 led to a building program and funding from all three levels of government. Government devoted a total of $55 million for the new central library.

Common themes that emerged in the public consultations in 2008 include the desire for a library which will be a source of pride and inspiration for everyone in the municipality, a bright, accessible, sustainable and welcoming venue, and a rich resource for knowledge, learning and personal growth. “The new central library will be an active part of daily life, reflect new developments in technology, present a new approach to traditional library service and we want it to be a vibrant cultural hub for everyone and the city,” Hare says. “We want spaces that can change and grow with our municipality.”

All of this year’s public consultations will have a different focus and go through a “World Café format” where participants engage in conversations first at tables of six then move to a new table to discuss a new topic. Library staff will be present to collect ideas that will later be combined into an “idea wall” and feedback forms will be handed out at the latter part of the consultation process. In the first public consultation, participants were asked to give their big ideas for the new central library, answers to their best experience of a building as a public space, and what the library could give to the municipality and what the municipality can give to the library.

At the end of the first round of public consultations held last June 10, over 250 participants came up with collective ideas that express a desire for a library that will be awe-inspiring, have innovative architecture, work as a green building, be accessible and be inclusive. Participants also want the new central library to allow for social interaction and engagement and be able to cater to different cultures.

“It’s important to involve the public and to let them feel that they have really taken ownership,” Schmidt explains. “It’s their building and of course there’s a lot of ideas and the architects’ role is really to take all these ideas and see how we can combine them and develop them. There may be ideas that are really fantastic that we haven’t thought about and we will take them in. Public consultations are definitely something that we are very serious about.”

For the library’s architects, one major consideration is to make sure that the new central library will connect to the city. One participant at the first public consultation also notes that the new library can even serve as “the calling card for the city.” The new central library will be three times the size of the current Spring Garden Road Memorial Library where part of the building will be allocated for a performance space and underground parking. “This new building is going to be a real key gathering point to the city, a building with true heart in the centre of our city, a landmark building that we can all be proud of,” Fitzgerald says.

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