SEPTEMBER 2015 \ BUILDING DIALOGUE \
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OPENING ART:
Rendering courtesy Paul Brokering
Isabella Bird Community School, Denver
ABOVE:
Photo courtesy Frank Ooms
Colorado State Capitol Dome Restoration, Denver
RIGHT:
Photo courtesy Ken Paul
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
North Annex, Denver
Many of these have included renovations of historic
Carnegie libraries. The steel magnate financed the construc-
tion of more than 2,500 public libraries around the world
at a cost of about $10,000 each between 1883 and 1929. Each
community was required to raise an equal amount of mon-
ey to enable them to fund operations in perpetuity.
“Working in these buildings allows us to restore and con-
tinue the use of the building for another 100 years,” says
Humphries. “So it’s a very valuable and highly valued re-
source within that community.”
He says people came out in droves to celebrate the open-
ing of HPA’s smallest library project, a 2,400-square-foot
“one-room” library in rural Wyoming. He saw a similar
outpouring of support for the largest he has designed, the
112,000-square-foot public library in Colorado Springs.
Humphries is hesitant about picking a favorite.
“All of our projects are about improving the livability and
quality of our communities,” Humphries says. “Whether it’s
a new K-12 school, a library, an affordable housing commu-
nity, preserving a building that’s been dormant in the com-
munity for years, or just upgrading the roof of a Post Office
– they all have importance to our lives.”
Public buildings are created with community in mind,
access and openness as an overarching premise. Parameters
for these buildings are often driven largely by the communi-
ty, which, Poli points out, illustrates the difference between
