CALS Children’s Library Wins 2015 NATIONAL AIA/ALA Library Building Award

Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects’ design of CALS’s Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library and Learning Center honored as one of the top six best examples of Library design worldwide.

Posted April 07, 2015

Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects and the Central Arkansas Library System have been honored with Library Architecture’s highest and most prestigious achievement: A 2015 AIA/ALA Library Building Award. Astonishingly, this is Polk Stanley Wilcox’s and CALS’ second national AIA/ALA award in the last four years, with the other being the Arkansas Studies Institute.

Of all libraries submitted, the 2015 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards honor only six separate projects. The Hillary Rodham Clinton Library and Learning Center joins prestigious projects from as far away as Vancouver, Washington, Dartmouth, Mass., Norfolk, Virginia, San Antonio, Texas, and Des Moines, Iowa. The projects will be honored at the National ALA Conference in San Francisco on June 25-30th.

To encourage excellence in the architectural design and planning of libraries, the National American Institute of Architects (AIA) in Washington DC and the American Library Association (ALA) created this award to distinguish accomplishments in library architecture. Biennially, representatives of each organization celebrate the finest examples of library design from around the world designed by American Architects.

CALS Director Bobby Roberts’ challenge was to create a playground without equipment, where nature and imagination combine to create grand adventures on a six-acre natural site in the heart of the capital city.   A charette held with children uncovered a surprising and heartbreaking result: their top desire wasn’t for the latest video games… they were concerned about food security – they wanted to learn how to feed themselves. Children also wanted a place that was uplifting, inspirational, and full of natural light, while feeling safe and secure. They wanted a place that “lifted expectations”.

“We worked diligently to design a library that would both connect with the desires of all children and enliven an underserved neighborhood, thus drawing people in from all over Little Rock. At a cost of $40.00 per sf below the average normal new library, being recognized as one of only six top library designs in the world by American architects is a testament to the public’s trust and continued investment in one of our community’s most critical assets, the Public Library. We as the architects take great pride in contributing to that trust. It was an honor to work with such visionaries as the leadership at CALS.” according to project design principal Reese Rowland, FAIA, of Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects.

Speaking of the library’s success, which included nearly 100,000 visitors, circulation of 99,178 books and DVDs, 832 events for children, and 326 group meetings in 2014 alone, Library Director Dr. Bobby Roberts stated, “Building a children’s library was a big step for us, since library systems usually treat those services as a department within a larger facility.  In our case, a stand-alone facility has paid huge dividends not only in terms of service but also in focusing attention on the children in our community.  It was the right time to build the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library; it already has become an iconic place for the children and parents of central Arkansas.”