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California Institute of the Arts Library

The original library at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA was housed in what is now the the animation school in the institute's main building. This original location would've provided much open space with central areas, natural light from high ceilings and enough floor strength for current and future stacks.

Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, the library was migrated to its current location in a mess of nondescript spaces that have been carved up and added onto in the intervening years. 

The Dean of Library Sciences reached out to WGA to solve the library's circulation problems, accessibility issues, and to find a new space for a recently acquired archive, larger offices and new study rooms -- all within a very tight budget. 

Our strategy involved creating a new, wider primary axis through the library (shown in pink on the diagram above) and tertiary axes using the redistributed periodicals stacks (some low, some high) that needed to be move out from the new archive room.  

PHASE ONE BUILT 2015, PHASE TWO BUILT 2018

 

 
 
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The pink lines on the floor plan highlight the edges where furniture elements and periodicals stacks (both high and low) are to be aligned. These aligned elements create new, clearly defined axes and sight lines in the library space. These new circulation zones then create boundaries for study areas, display areas, seating areas to occur off of the primary and secondary circulation routes.