NADAAA is working with the Boston Public Library and the Public Facilities Department to design a replacement for the Adams Street library branch in Dorchester. Construction will begin this summer!
The neighborhood scale is largely residential with mature trees and inviting sidewalks. The new building picks up on the scale of the surrounding houses, colorful Victorian painted clapboards, and a busy main street that connects Hemenway Park to Gallivan Boulevard.
The new program is twice the size of the previous branch, and the generous three-sided site allows for a single-story building, maintaining porous connections to the street and improving the accessible approach. While Adams Street serves as the Library’s front door, there are prominent elevations on Oakton Avenue to the north and Delmont Street to the south. A single pitch monumentalizes the façade on Adams Street, while a breakdown of peaked roofs creates a diminutive scale more appropriate for the side streets.
The folded roof is composed of a series of ruled surfaces, the result of a simple series of striated beams running east/west. Pitches point toward rain gardens, both along the eastern property edge and within a court of native plants at the south.
Effectively a mat building, a southern ‘cut’ brings light and air deep into the core of the footprint. On the north, a Reading Garden will pay homage to a space cultivated and maintained by the Library’s Friends, respecting a grand Pin Oak that will continue to dominate the corner of Oakton and Adams, as well as become a visual focal point for the Library’s interior.
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