client: Tulsa City County Library
employer: MSR Design (formerly MS&R, Ltd) Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle
role: Project Architect | Designer | Modeling & Rendering
year: 2012
photos: MSR Design, Lara Swimmer, Modus Engineering + misc.
renderings & video: MSR Design & mrlw
awards:
The Tulsa City County Library project was another that I was lucky enough to help on during my work as an independent consultant with MS&R.
It’s an amazing transformation of an existing facility to bring an old library back to life and into modernity.
From the deep dives on what it means to skin a parking garage and create an edge for the Secret Garden, to working with the team to develop a solution specifically suited to that place, and with a timeless quality.
This 144,000 SF, $55 million renovation and addition was the last one that I worked on during my ‘second round’ at MS&R.
The existing central library is located in downtown Tulsa and was a key component in revitalizing the district.
The site itself is located next door to the Tulsa Aloft hotel, adjacent to the stadium, convention center, and multiple venues in downtown Tulsa. The plaza area north of the site is an existing underground garage.
The existing surface parking to the west of the building was turned into a ‘Secret Garden’ with the 148 space parking garage serving as the backdrop to a 400 person outdoor event area.
Full disclosure – I got onto this project at the front end of the design development phase, while there were still things being ironed out with the design – but the schematic design and programming was largely complete. I worked thru the parking garage, portions of the link, the auditorium (not included in the final project) as well as existing conditions, client renderings, and site elements. Portions of the interior were in development – the vertical circulation was still being hammered out.
The project was completed well after I had departed my independent consulting for the firm, however I am forever grateful for the opportunity to be involved with this project.
My time at MS&R taught me to listen first, to take in as much information as you could from the history of place, from the project team and turn that into a thought out and intentional solution to bring quality to the outcome.
MS&R has always been the best environment and best firm that I’ve been involved with. The level of detail, the in-depth design conversations and the way that design is studied, and re-studied and molded thorough the process has imprinted on me deeply. The firm understands what it means to look at a design from an end result and desired user experience. I’ve had 4-hour long conversations while working there about detail and interactions, that just don’t happen in other firms.
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