Schenectady County SUNY Schenectady Schenectady, NY
This $12M 30,000 square foot complete gut-renovation is a welcome addition to campus. The design overhauls the library’s interior design, creating a modern learning commons, complete with new technology, fresh finishes and furniture, and a re-vamped spatial organization. A new connectivity is created by removing a structural bay between the first and second floor, located strategically between the communicating stair and a new expanded set of two-story high windows, offering views to and from the exterior courtyard and the new lofty bright space. This location houses the commons’ circulation desk and soft seating on both floors, as well as thematically designed lighting sculptures; an icon within the commons, and from outside, seen as visitors enter the building.
Private study rooms and expanded reconfigurable tutoring areas fill the lower level, encouraging solo study, group work, training opportunities, as well as academic assistance, in a bright modern environment complete with new technology, and moveable writing surfaces and partitions.
A new café and technology lounge further modernize the commons, providing unique spots for students and staff to commune, and to see and be seen.
