Revised Floor Plans

Conceptual floor plans for the museum/library (if you click on them, they will take you to an enlargement):

Above: second floor

Above: First Floor


Above: Basement Level (potential option)

Building Meetings

The architects met with the building committee, library and museum staff, city officials, and the public last Wednesday and Thursday. The public meeting was held on Thursday evening with a turnout of approximately 30 people. Here were some concerns and questions:

• Need basement storage (so we'll take a look at two options and cost them out accordingly in order to make sound decisions)
• Kitchen/ Kitchenette - delete the stove so that we won't have to design a commercial kitchen which means having commercial hoods, 3-compartment sink, commercial dishwasher, etc. We're to look at creating a small area within the meeting room storage area for a tidier appearance
• Meeting room sink - make sure it's a double sink to function well for childrens' art/craft classes/sessions
• Windows - lots of views and openness/light versus energy loss/consumption. We're going to use some computer modeling techniques to analyze energy and lighting ramifications
• Art - where and how to incorporate into the building. Need to discuss with the building committee and user group to create a process of where and how much art. Could incorporate into the building elements as well as separate art pieces. It was suggested that we could even etch art into the exterior finish materials!
• Exterior finishes - metal siding can be quite cold and sterile. The finishes have not been considered at this point. Currently we are making sure that the plan works and that we have the right amount of window to wall ratio.
• Roofing material and loads - concerns about low-slope membrane roof. We're proposing to use a PVC or TPO membrane roof that is very durable, raven proof, and can be installed without tenting. Typical warranties range from 15 to 30 years. There will be internal drains to mitigate freeze up and manage roof run off as there are no storm drains to tie into to.
• Plan modifications to lessen the boxy nature - we will look at introducing plan gestures within the interior spaces, especially at the children's library. But generally we like to use the section, or vertical/spatial aspect to give interest and variation to the spaces.
• Boilers/ HVAC system - we suggested that perhaps an electric and oil fired boilers could be explored as a possible way to mitigate market fluctuations in fuel costs. Typically 2 boilers are designed for the sake of redundancy in the event that one goes out. We are going to explore having one electric and the other oil.
  

Seward was great and there's a lot of community involvement, we hope that the library will be a valuable asset for 50+ years! The next time we'll be in Seward is around the middle of January to meet with the building committee.

Interpretation and Museum Design

Last week the interpretive/museum designers were in town gathering information in order for them to start developing content for the new museum. Gathering history and beginning to plan, were Isaac Marshall and Alix Noble from Aldrich Pears (a Vancouver, British Columbia interpretive design firm). Aldrich Pears is quite familiar with Alaska through their work on such projects as the Islands and Oceans Center in Homer, the Denali front country Visitor Center, Eielson Visitor Center and the Kodiak Visitor Center.



Isaac met with elementary school students (photo above) to listen to their ideas and what they think should be included in the new museum. While perhaps not historical, the idea for a rooftop pool floated to the top. Maybe we can even add a hot tub!

In addition to gathering information at the school, they met with the building committee, museum staff, a National Park Service staff person, and visited the Sea Life Center. The goal for their visit was to gather content for the new museum, and ensure that they do not duplicate information already presented in other facilities around town.

Their visit to Seward was productive (and fun). They will be back in March to start the visioning workshop. A visioning workshop is where the community and design team ideas start to take form, and where people can start to visualize what the products could look like. Stay tuned!

Friday Night Public Meeting

After five days of meeting with various people and library/museum user groups, we put our thoughts together and presented them on Friday at 5:00.


Community members getting ready for the presentation.




Brian Meissner (ECI-Hyer) summarizing the week. Through meeting with everyone, we felt we produced conceptual building plans and ideas that really reflected community desires, good library/museum design, and sustainable building practices.


After the meeting, it was great to see people looking at the drawings on this table... pointing, talking and asking questions.


Keith urging people to keep the ball rolling on fundraising and getting this project to come to fruition (after being serenaded with a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday).

Finally some landscape...

We finally got to the point with the building that some thought could be given to the site design. We played with something preliminary to begin to talk about landscape and streetscape elements of the project.

Luckily Jae's kids came equipped with wax crayons. So, we sat down to color our own things and help each other out.


Peter Briggs (Corvus Design) getting advice on exactly which shade of green is best used to show some roses in the landscape plan (with a few dots of red here and there).


The pretty fast landscape plan for the site of the site used to begin to talk about connection of the building to adjacent uses, getting the landscape and building to complement one another, opportunities for art, and lower maintenance native plantings.

The Process of Design

Some people have stopped past Soo's B&B to visit and comment, but for those of you that haven't been able to make it, here are a few photos. Design process is about drawing a lot of things to try and workshop ideas and figure things out.


Sometimes (usually?) design is fueled by coffee.


Thomas Hacker (THA Architecture) working with Brian and Jae on Museum/Library floorplan development.


Mary Tougas sharing a cup of tea and comments.


Lots of trace paper... sketch...revise... crumple and move to the next one.


Keith Campbell at the table with us.


Kerry Martin and Keith Campbell dropping by.

What a view might look like...

We got up on the building that's to the east of the library, and developed a 360 degree panoramic photo from the roof. The left and right edge of the photo is approximately north. (click on it to be taken to a larger version)



Here's what the view looks like from east of this location, down on the site.