Original Building Entrance - Top Right;  Media Center (Library) Exterior Views - Left and Bottom

Library Design Challenges due to Site Conditions

The additions and remodelings to Fisher-Fienberg Elementary School in Miami Beach was a challenge because it entailed adding to a historic building from 1905 which had almost no existing drawings for the large campus facility.  This institutional project by Miami architects, United Architects, consisted of incorporating parts of the existing buildings while demolishing other parts.  The client had very specific ideas on where it wanted to put the library - in the existing courtyard.  This presented several challenges: 

1.  How to get rid of the roof water? 
2.  How to get all the floors to match and not have sidewalks or ramps which were too difficult for the handicap to traverse or violate accessibility codes?
3.  How to integrate adjacent structures which were to be part of the new library, while at the same time removing walls so as not to have too many columns? 

The final design had three bays.  The eastern bay was part of one of the existing adjacent buildings.  The middle bay was a new addition, higher than the other bays, which allowed for clerestory windows on the south side.  We drained the roofs through piping in fake columns which were larger than the actual structural columns.  Except for a couple of short ramps, most of the floors were at the same elevation.  The pendant lights that we used had an Art Deco quality to them which blended with the school's original architecture.

For interiors click on link below

Fisher-Fienberg Library Interiors