TopLocation Address
Dauphin County Library System
Hummelstown Community Library
205 South John Street
Hummelstown, Pennsylvania 17036
TopProject Introduction
The new Hummelstown Community Library is located at the site of a historic hotel destroyed in a fire. The library building makes references to the hotel in its design ad feature board and batten siding and an exposed timber ceiling inside.
No, it was conceived as a reaction to its programming and the constraints of a long narrow tapered site.
Sitting on the site of a previously demolished Victorian era hotel, the library occupies the main intersection with similar massing and materials, and then transforms to a more playful series of masses to the rear. These forms echo the more traditional nature of the adult areas, with the children and youth occupying the more modern end.
The existing library was in a converted community building that was inaccessible on the lower level, too small, and in a hidden part of the community.
The new library has more than five times the public access terminals as the previous library and they were integrated into a “digital” spine that runs through the length of the building making them prominent and clearly integrated into the design. The circulation desk is at the center of the spine.
Usage has increased substantially, and there is a lot of civic pride as patrons walk across the bricks engraved with their family names, evidence of the widespread participation in seeing it funded and built.