After the floods, downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, finds revitalization through reinvestment with a library at the center of it all.
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Visitors to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the early 2000s would have found a downtown that was declining, as so many Midwestern cities have experienced when the population moves toward the outer edges. Then, in 2008, the Cedar River rose out of its banks in a devastating flood that exceeded the 500-year flood plain. Downtown Cedar Rapids was devastated, and among the worst victims was the public library, which saw its first floor completing engulfed in muddy, churning waters, destroying nearly 200,000 items from its collection.
Cities struggle to rebound from such disasters, and libraries can’t easily replace lost items in these days of tight municipal budgets. But, Cedar Rapids decided to reinvest in its downtown and its library, and the result is a newly vibrant public gathering space with a dynamic library at its heart. The library meets the new missions of libraries to become more than collectors of dusty artifacts, but to become the center of community life.
Referring to the increased downtown activity, “The flood was a silver lining in a way,” says Bradd Brown, AIA, LEED AP, principal at OPN Architects, Cedar Rapids. OPN Architects earned the commission to design the new library.
A Downtown Orientation
The library sits on a lot previously occupied by an insurance company building. To the north lies Greene Square Park and across the park sits the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. The building itself is shaped like a T, with the top running parallel to railroad tracks, and the base stretching out between off-street parking on the south and an urban plaza on the north. “With this t-shaped plan, we put an urban plaza on the north side that relates to the park,” Brown says. “The library has different kinds of programmed events that work with the park, and they’ll shut the street down and things will spill out from the library plaza out into Greene Square Park.”
The library is unusual in that it has three entrances. “Typically, libraries have one main entrance, but we have one to the north that connects to the park. One to the south to the off-street parking. And a third through a skywalk to the parking structure,” explains Brown. All the entrances collect in a central lobby area that includes a coffee shop.
Off that central core are the usual library sections, including children’s reading room and adult fiction area on the first floor. Back office areas are located along the area by the railroad tracks, and the second floor is generally reserved for quieter study areas.
Transparency
One of the defining characteristics of the library is its transparency. About 37 percent of the wall space has fenestration. “We’ve designed a lot of libraries,” says Brown. “Often, you drive past a library and you don’t know it’s a library. The previous library had a lot of glass, but it was dark glass. We talked about stealing cues from retail stores. On Michigan Avenue in Chicago, the storefronts light up at night, which pulls you in. With this library, people walk by and they can see the books and see the activity. Whether you read the sign or not, you know it’s a library.”
Seeing that kind of activity in downtown further solidifies the area as a vibrant gathering place for the community.
An ACM-clad Auditorium
But libraries offer more than books, and the 200- seat auditorium serves as a great example. It occupies the top of the T in a two-story space with a dynamic curtainwall and red vertical sunshades at one end.
That section of the building is clad with Reynobond aluminum composite material panels by Alcoa Architectural Products, Eastman, Ga. The paneling has a distinctive irregularly sized pattern of raised and recessed panels that offer a very strong contrast to the very smooth, brown cement composite panels by Swiss Pearl, Niederurnen, Switzerland. “I like when the outside and inside have reason and logic behind them,” says Brown. “Where there is a library collection is either glass or really dark, brownish Swiss Pearl panels. Where there is white is back-of-the-house support spaces.
“For the auditorium, we wanted to signify the space as different. It starts on the second floor and has that sloped underbelly. We wanted a different material and started explore ACM panels. We also wanted to express the fact that the auditorium was going to be used in ways we could never imagine. Different than a library. So we wanted vibrancy on the material cladding.”
OPN Architects worked with Metal Design Systems, Cedar Rapids, on an efficient way to fabricate different-sized panels with a minimum of waste. Matt Rechkemmer is regional sales manager for Metal Design Systems. “There are roughly a thousand panels on that auditorium, and we were trying to make it simpler for the installer,” he explains. So, they created a 5-foot-long module that had smaller panels as part of it, making the installation smoother and easier. There were four different styles to each module and they were interspersed across the façade to give it greater variety.
The panels also include glass panels with an LED light behind them to give even more dimension to the auditorium façade at night.
Metal Design Systems further eased the installation by making the carrier system for the Swiss Pearl panels identical to the carrier system for the Reynobond panels, which attached to an R-25 wall system.
A major design element of the auditorium is the curtainwall, which actually is positioned behind the stage area. The glass is an electrochromic system from SageGlass, Faribault, Minn., that can change from clear to opaque depending on the needs. Community groups, such as high-school improv troupes, have gravitated to the space, and it gets considerable use.
The auditorium also connects to the green roof deck over the lower part of the building. Patrons can eat their lunch up on the deck, enjoying the view and the space is often booked for events including, in the first year, 17 weddings.
Any place that attracts high-school improv troupes, corporate events and weddings has truly become an essential part of the community. That it’s a library is just part of the silver lining of the rebirth of downtown Cedar Rapids.
Sidebar
Sustainable Features
The Cedar Rapids Library qualifies for LEED Platinum certification. Here are some of the features that contributed to that achievement:
- Designed to exceed the Iowa Energy Code by 55 percent
- Pump and re-inject geothermal HVAC system
- Pre-flood library used energy at a rate of 100 kbtu/square foot
- New library designed to use energy at a rate of 37 kbtu/ square foot
- Exterior glazing covers approximately 37 percent of the building envelope
- Thermally broken aluminum framing
- 1-inch insulating glass has low-E coating and is argon filled
- Exterior envelope: R-28, maximized thermal performance
- Daylight harvesting: daylight sensors, dimmable ballasts and T5/LED Lights
- Use of natural light: 15 Solatubes and large clerestory on roof
- Stormwater management: Retain 90 percent of normal annual rainfall and 100 percent of all rainfall up to 1-inch in a 24-hour period on-site.
- 24,000-square-foot accessible green roof with rainwater harvesting for irrigation
- Pervious paving with stormwater collection chambers below parking lot
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Cedar Rapids Library, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Building owner: City of Cedar Rapids
Project size: 95,000 square feet
Completion date: August 2013
Architect: OPN Architects, Cedar Rapids
General contractor: Knutson Construction, Minneapolis
Metal panel fabricators: Metal Design Systems, Cedar Rapids
Metal panel installers: Architectural Wall Systems, West Des Moines, Iowa
Electrochromic Glass: SageGlass, Faribault, Minn., www.sageglass.com
Skylights: Solatube International Inc., Vista, Calif., www.solatube.com
Photo Credit: Main Street Studios and Mark Kempf Photography