Treanor Architects

Community Living Room

As public libraries in small communities serve not just as repositories of information and locations providing free access to the internet, but as vital focal points of community life and identity, the contributions architectural design can make are valuable in gathering community values in a public place and increasing public participation in communities.

Bonner Springs Library staff and leadership desired a quality building that respected the mission of the library, while maximizing value for their taxpayer-patrons. Bonner Springs’ history is tied to the building of railroads along the Kansas River valley at the foot of the town. Tucked into the limestone-boned hills just above the river floodplain, it is also home to the Lake of the Forest, a private lakefront lodge development built early in the twentieth century as a summer retreat for privileged Kansas City families.

The idea of this lodge as a place distinct from everyday life resonated with the participants in our design charrette, and the new building reflects this idea in its limestone and cypress walls and its bermuda metal roof. The railroad theme emerges in the children’s library, where the story time room takes on the form of a water tank on the outside and a roundhouse on the inside, complete with an engine and a caboose. Among the many sustainable features of the Bonner Springs library is the community meeting space roof structure formed from materials salvaged from a former abandoned school building on the library’s site. The prominent brownfield site requires public entrances at two floor levels and a substantial underground storm water detention system.

Bonner Springs City Library has a main floor area of 18,000 square feet, with a basement of 3,000 square feet housing a meeting room that serves as a community storm shelter designed and built by FEMA standards.