Coral Gables, FL · Completed
A one-room branch library built around the tree it refuses to remove.
- year
- 2022
- area
- 3,400 SF
- program
- Branch library reading room
01Concept
The brief
The city's smallest branch needed rebuilding; the neighborhood's condition was one sentence: do not touch the banyan.
The site
A corner lot owned as much by the tree as by the county, its canopy shading a quarter acre by noon.
The climate move
02Blueprint
Materials, as drawn
Board-formed concrete · White oak shelving · Lime plaster · Impact glazing
03Manifest
The response, built
The room wraps the trunk at a respectful radius, glazed floor to ceiling toward the canopy; the collection lines the outer walls where the light is calm.
The detail that proves it
Rain on the canopy is audible inside by design: the roof ring is tuned like an instrument, and children ask for storm days.
Set to solar time.