Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/453014
LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 77 mynortondoctor.com became, 'How do you put all the components together in a way that is both familiar and new?' It must attract people, house books and media, be durable, allow room for solitude and congregation." Last Oct. 5, the day the library opened, more cardholders checked out books (there are some 120,000 volumes) than in any LFPL facility the entire previous month. Te Southwest Regional Library will serve some 100,000 residents, including those in Shively, Pleasure Ridge Park and Valley Station. Te architects started with a 40,000-square-foot blank slate of Dixie Highway near Valley High School. (Two other libraries — one of Preston Highway, the other of Hurstbourne Parkway — are in the works.) "We wanted the building to have a sense of joy," Drake says. A walking bridge leads to the entrance. Embossed, "rigidized" steel covers the building's facade and catches sunlight. At night, as the sun sets, overlapping panels provide a light show from within the building, making the library glow. Kid-sized cubbies, lit from within, silhouette young readers. Glass enclosures used for studying stand throughout the open foor plan and provide a sense of privacy, even though you are on view for all to see. Windows ofer views of landscaped gardens. No part of the soaring ceiling runs on a fat plane. Hundreds of light globes are always in fux, changing intensity as the day goes on to maximize the amount of available light. With an eye to an ever-changing future, bookshelves are on wheels, rooms are movable. "Because we want the building to last for generations, we had a responsibility to the community to make it possible for the building to change," Buthod says.