Roslindale Branch Library
Boston Public Library
Boston, MA

Roslindale is among the most diverse neighborhoods in Boston and the renovated library represents one of its most important community space at the heart of Roslindale Center.

The completely renovated and reconfigured interior with strategic exterior interventions revives this vital place of community learning and gathering for the digital age.

Its design takes advantage of historical features such as the central dome with clerestory lighting, under which a new central point circulation desk provides easy access of staff for the library patrons.

The message “reading is fun” is communicated to children with shelving in the shape of a “maze”, and a laptop reading bar along the perimeter provides connection with the town center.

A new entry that removes existing step and ramp provides universal access to all while a protective canopy and colorful terra-cotta

baguettes, a metaphor for “books on shelves”, gives the library a new identity. Almost all of the existing structure and envelope was reused for a resourceful,

low embodied carbon strategy, along with new efficient MEP systems and building insulation for low operational energy.