Clermont Library Annex

AThe brief

The library board had a bond that passed by nine votes, a budget with no contingency worth the name, and a 1928 Carnegie-adjacent building with a children's room in the basement that flooded. They needed a programme room, an accessible entrance, and the children's collection above grade. They also needed every person who voted no to walk past the finished thing and not feel taken. That last requirement shaped more decisions than the first three.

BWhat we did

We spent the design fee where the public touches the building and nowhere else. The new entrance, the ramp, and the reading porch are in local bluestone and oak, detailed properly. Everything behind them is a straightforward insulated stud wall in fibre cement, honestly, cheaply, and without apology. The programme room's one move is a nine-foot north window at a child's sitting height, which cost about four thousand dollars and is the only thing anyone photographs. We ran a public drawing review at the fire hall at week six, and the two changes that came out of it — a second door and a coat alcove — are the two changes the staff now cite most.

CThe decisions

1. ---

   01

   Spend it where they touch it

   Bluestone and oak at the entrance, ramp, and porch. Fibre cement everywhere else. A civic budget is a moral document and it should be legible in the building.

2. ---

   02

   A window at sitting height

   Nine feet wide, sill at sixteen inches, facing north into the maples. Four thousand dollars. It is on the cover of the annual report.

3. ---

   03

   The fire hall review

   A public drawing review at week six, before the set was fixed. Two real changes came out of it, and the board had a room full of people who had already been consulted.

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