Parker Branch Library

Over the course of several years, AMD designed three new libraries for the communities of Parker, Castle Pines, and Lone Tree in Douglas County. Each of these libraries reflect the values of the specific community while communicating the library district’s mission to “elevate our community by inspiring a love of reading, discovery, and connection.” The Parker Branch, sited in a prominent location within a master development including a public park and plaza inserts the library within the community while providing interior and exterior spaces that help shape Parker’s new civic center.

The exterior of the building is carefully composed to respond to each façade’s adjacent site conditions and context, serving as a gateway marker at the intersection of Main Street and Pine Drive as well as a series of urban edges that blur the lines between park, plaza, and building. Within the building, the various community-focused programs within the building are arranged to showcase public spaces while placing private spaces at less visible locations within the building.

At the building entry, a café stretches along the entire west edge of the building, correlating with the exposure to the public plaza and terminating at Main Street with a picture window to reveal the activity within. The second floor of the library perches over the west edge to form a porch, promoting interplay between the plaza and library ground level. Maker and collaboration spaces are also highly visible to the public, animating the façade along the Main Street urban corridor. Civic, community spaces on Level 2 provide connection and views to the public park and plaza, rendered with high volume and clerestory windows that take advantage of views and solar shading.

In collaboration with studiotrope Design Collective