Douglaston – Little Neck Queens Public Library

BKSK is designing a new Community Library in Douglaston-Little Neck, for the NYC DDC and the Queens Public Library. Localted on a prominent corner site, the new library will capitalize on the site’s inherent opportunities: the main program spaces are visible to the street, making the range of services and activities clear and legible; the design provides natural light to all spaces, includes an occupiable rooftop garden, and is sited to maximize ground floor green outdoor space to augment program spaces in exciting ways. The library will be a distinguished center for activity and a beacon for the community.

The neighborhood character is a contrast of natural landscape features that extend deep into its fabric and the “strip” urbanism of Northern Boulevard. The new library seeks to embrace that contrast by inserting substantial green spaces, into a brash, over-scaled corner presence. The landscape is brought into the facility with a long public green space on the 249th street side, a gradually sloping green roof of multicolored sedum, and a children’s garden set into that roof. The presence on Northern Boulevard is envisioned as a large-scale transom window with a billboard-sized graphic.

BKSK has high ambitions for building sustainability and for making those ambitions evident in the architecture. Careful manipulation of light to achieve the most infiltration to spaces while avoiding glare, improved envelope performance, an all-electric mechanical system, PV panels, higher rated air filtration systems and a reduction of the overall carbon footprint are all features of the design. When complete the project will attain LEED Gold certification.