The Pleasant Hill Library design centers a once-in-a-generation civic building within a rediscovered and newly legible natural world adjacent to Grayson Creek. The design team was asked to create a ‘signature building’ and new public landscape where residents including animals and people of all ages would feel welcome and connect to both their environment and each other. The new improvements were all located within the 100-year floodplain receiving floodwater not only from the creek, but from the adjacent roadway and a second creek uphill. The site design for the library both creates flood protection and connects a series of indoor and outdoor community gathering spaces along a trail within healthy ecology. A model of a 21st century public institution, the library design is net zero and re-connected to the local ecology of the creek.

Using a community-driven outcome-based methodology, the City and the design team invented and conducted a yearlong campaign of engagement to identify the needs to be supported by the new library and to define the spaces that support these needs. Spaces were organized by size, qualities, and infrastructure rather than a specific use. The community helped to shape the building design by encouraging connection from every interior space to the outdoors.

The site plan locates the library length along an east-west axis, an orientation that defines a civic presence along Oak Park Boulevard while providing the riparian corridor along Grayson Creek space to expand during flooding. Prevailing breezes from the southwest are harnessed for natural ventilation. Floor to ceiling windows on the eastern side of the library, look out over the new bioretention areas provided for flood mitigation. This topography for flood control was also designed to be a top-of-bank connective trail. The design is an integrated, legible, and cohesive architectural, landscape, and infrastructure solution.