DESERT BROOM LIBRARY in Phoenix as

Whether the result ofWill Bruder setting a new standard for
library design with his 1995 flagship Phoenix Central
Library, the city’s 2001 move to make the Phoenix Public
Library (PPL) a separate city department, or the rainmaking
by Toni Garvey, the city’s dynamo of a head librarian, Phoenix
continues to build libraries that break the mold and redefine the building
type. With the completion of the 15,000-square-foot Desert Broom
Library, in north Phoenix, Richärd+Bauer takes the concept of redefinition
to another level, creating a striking yet harmonious addition to the
desert landscape, clad in weathered steel.
Phoenix, the nation’s sixth-largest city, with a population of
nearly 1.5 million, has given the PPL, with its 14 public libraries, the freedom
and support it needs to create its identity with new services, new
branches, and a new attitude about library design. “Cities can go in one
direction or another with libraries,” says Garvey. “They can go with a
cookie-cutter, or they can create libraries that make a statement.”
Richärd+Bauer had worked on several libraries within Phoenix
and nearby Scottsdale, including a renovation of a Bruder-designed branch.
Its latest project, which includes a park, was a chance for the firm to create
a destination that would qualify for LEED Silver status, sit gently on the
virgin desert landscape of its 45-acre site, and stand out without imposing
on the land. “Communities are erasing the desert,” says principal Jim
Richärd, AIA. “We wanted to build responsibly. Also, in this kind of site,
little cornices don’t mean anything.You need big gestures.”
For Richärd, building in the arid Sonoran Desert meant preserving
the authenticity of what was there. Desert Broom’s site, with its
braided streams, arroyos, and abundance of wild brush and saguaros,
offered a metaphor that gave the project direction. A young saguaro needs
the shade and nutrients provided by an older, stronger tree or shrub, and
the design of the library embraces the metaphor physically—the library’s
25,000-square-foot roof extends 60 feet from the building, to shade visitors
and provide comfortable outdoor spaces—and philosophically.
“Libraries nurture intellectual growth,” says Richärd. “We took that concept
a few steps further.”
The brain nourishment begins before you even get to the front
door of Desert Broom. The building and parking lot are nestled in desert
wilderness, and visitors approach the entrance from the northwest, crossing
over an arroyo on a perforated-metal bridge. Immediately, the right
angles of the building are contradicted by a random pattern of slender, 4-
inch-diameter steel columns that continue throughout the building and