A Dialogue with Mountain, Ocean, and Sky

Evolving Roles for Libraries
Libraries have traditionally been internally oriented facilities, focused on introspectively independent study. Quiet repositories of knowledge bound in books.

A shift toward digital resources, with lessening reliance on hard copy materials, has compelled libraries to diversify their public purpose. Libraries, however, have always been places where information and social infrastructures intersect. The Water Drop Library Sky Garden is intended to build upon this immutable role, establishing a physical and metaphorical platform, a place from which to tangibly connect with place, culture, and community.

External physical orientation facilitates this proposition. Publicly accessible outdoor spaces and face-to-face engagement enable community development. And, by engaging visitors with majestic, albeit threatened natural ecosystems, a sense of stewardship may take root.

Water Drop Library serves as the most unique and inspirational public landmark in town. With a vivid sense of place, it acts as both a beacon and calling. A beacon connected to sky, sea, and land, calling for revitalized relationships between people and their environment.

Instilling Stewardship
Natural assets and a call to stewardship symbolically inspire the development of the library site:

– Endless ocean panoramas suggest the need for integrated global consciousness.
– The pristine Shadow Brook Valley showcases local environmental responsibilities.
– Preservation of magnificent rock outcroppings highlight regional geologic history.
– Wondrous starry skies symbolize the preciousness of life on earth, the only life known to man.

The landscape architect worked closely with the developer to strategically site the library site high up on the hillside, with panoramic views of both the sea and forested hillsides. Detailed site design is orchestrated as a deliberate sequence of movement, views, and destinations. The setting is intended to serve inquisitive library patrons as both inspiration and introspection.

Fit and Integration
Topographic fit and seamless landscape integration were primary objectives. Low impact manipulation of topography reflects the designers’ interest in interventional placemaking and preservation of natural assets.

Site design was organized to integrate relationships to beautiful rock outcropping formations, without disturbance.

Spatial Choreography and Function
The site design unfolds on opposite sides of a monumental site wall, eastward to-ward the sunrise and westward toward the sunset. The division reinforces the choreographic and spatial organization of the site, using solar conditions, light, and shadow to vividly portray these environments across time.

The site is organized as a set of discrete but integrated functions and spaces. Movement, arrival, and revelation are orchestrated as the visitor ascends through a series of garden spaces to the culminating platform.

Master Plan and Landscape Design by TOPOS Landscape Architects
Library Architecture by 3andwich Design / HE Wei Studio
Photography by JIN Weiqi and HE Wei

Design Phases by TOPOS
Concept Design, Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Documents, Construction Administration

Awards
ASLA SoCal Honor Award 2023
Architecture MasterPrize - Best of Best 2023