Diamond Schmitt Architects and CEI Architecture Planning Interiors, in joint venture
The North Vancouver City Library is a landmark building servicing a growing community. The library and surrounding plaza provides a community meeting place and generates urban vitality that compliments the surrounding business district and City Hall.
The distribution of program space within the library creates superb study spaces overlooking either the Civic Plaza or the Courtyard with unparalleled mountain views.
Energy to the LEED Gold Candidate building is provided by the Central Lonsdale District Energy Plant, located beneath the plaza. A large array of solar panels following the south slope of the roof monitor, provide heat for domestic hot water to the District.
photo: Tom Arban
photo: Tom Arban
photo: Tom Arban / Diamond Schmitt Architects
photo: Tom Arban
photo: Tom Arban
“This new library, located directly across from North Vancouver’s City Hall, has provided the municipality of North Vancouver with an attractive civic building and plaza that significantly contributes to its identity and quality of its public realm. The building invites the general public to move freely through its spaces, enjoying a generous atrium space and a rooftop garden with views toward Burrard Inlet and the North Shore mountains. The library is clearly the result of involving stakeholders’ objectives and desires throughout the design process which helped shape the project’s contribution to the definition of the City of North Vancouver’s central area. Moving parking into a new underground parking facility was a key achievement that removed cumbersome surface angle parking for visitors to City Hall, thereby permitting the creation of a new civic plaza while mitigating the dominance of the automobile.”