Silver Spring Library Exterior Designs Draw Debate

Residents are split over which of two exterior design options for the new Silver Spring Library would draw more people into the building and provide proper access to it.

One design presented in a community meeting last Thursday features a glass facade on the Fenton Street side of the building, a mostly concrete front on Wayne Avenue and a series of tiered, green roofs. The library will be built at Wayne and Fenton.

In the other option, the sides of the building, mostly glass on both sides, would not be parallel to the streets. Instead, the building would be turned to follow the proposed Purple Line Metro tracks that will run through the site.

Both options, designed by the Lukmire Partnership of Arlington County, would have an entrance with elevators on Wayne and an entrance with an escalator on Fenton. The building will house an art center and a coffee shop on the first two floors, a 65,000-square-foot library on the next three floors, county offices on the sixth floor and community meeting rooms and terraces on the roof.

The major differences in the designs resulted from how the building will interact with the Purple Line, the Lukmire architects said.

"It's the strangest element to address that you wouldn't expect to address on any library," said Bill Evans, a partner with Lukmire.

The library would feature a Purple Line stop, but Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) must make a decision on a Purple Line route. Lukmire presented only designs that included the Purple Line tracks.

Architect Jon Lourie of Silver Spring called the first option "chaotic" and said he favored the option that more closely followed the proposed Purple Line route.

"It's not architecture; it just doesn't work," Lourie, who is chairman of the Silver Spring Urban District Advisory Board, said of the first option. "It looks like two different people designing two different buildings."

He also said the escalator at the Fenton Street entrance would take up too much space. Other residents said the escalator, which would be prominent behind a glass facade on Fenton, could serve as an inviting design element, rather than having a drab elevator.

"Give us the dignity of having a proper entrance," said Kathlin Smith of Silver Spring. "Give us the presence on this street to get people into the library."

The designs Lukmire presented included a pedestrian bridge that would connect the third floor of the library building to the fourth floor of the Wayne Avenue garage. Whether to include a pedestrian bridge has been hotly contested. Residents are split, county officials favor it and county planners oppose it.

On Tuesday, the County Council's Planning, Housing and Economic Development committee will review whether to amend the 1999 Silver Spring Urban Renewal Plan that prohibits bridges over Wayne Avenue. A full council vote will follow.

Melanie Hennigan of Takoma Park said the library would be open to all visitors if the bridge were included, along with elevators at the Wayne Avenue entrance and an escalator at the Fenton Street entrance.

"You have to give all people with different preferences their due," Hennigan said. "If you take any away, then you are looking at failure."

Thursday's meeting, which drew about 30 residents, was the fourth and final session on the exterior design. Lukmire will present its final design draft to the community in September.

Nine community meetings have been held over the past year to determine the program of requirements and design of the library, which also includes a residential building on Bonifant Street. At those meetings, residents favored an option that would have placed the library along Bonifant and the apartment building along Wayne Avenue, but County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) and the council chose otherwise.