Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Ringling College of Art + Design: Alfred R. Goldstein Library

  • 07/01/18
Ringling College of Art + Design

PHOTOS © JEREMY BITTERMANN

“This is not your grandfather’s library.”
—Larry Thompson, president, Ringling College of Art + Design

The Alfred R. Goldstein Library at Ringling College of Art + Design in Sarasota, FL, enhances the college’s reputation as a design school and sets a new direction for future campus design. Serving as a new nexus of community activity for campus and the surrounding neighborhoods, the library is much more than a depository for books.

As a lively space that draws students, faculty, and community members together, the space features flexible classrooms, group study areas, makerspace, a café, the academic resource center, a rare books collection, and multiple terraces offering views of campus and the adjacent Whitaker Bayou. These program pieces are organized around a central open stair that helps visitors make visual connections to the various activities taking place, and encourages impromptu meetings.

An important aspect of the design process was to include the school community as a creative partner; for example, a continuous three-story service and elevator core is wrapped in a mural designed by a Ringling alum, and serves as an orienting device on each floor.

Located near the center of Ringling’s growing campus—on a site formerly occupied by a gas station and a parking lot—the Alfred R. Goldstein Library brings life to a once vacant part of the college. The ground floor is designed to blur the lines between interior and exterior space, with shaded terraces and vast expanses of glass that welcome visitors in and provide views of the surrounding landscape. Open 24 hours a day, the library has become the most popular meeting place on campus, engaging students, faculty, and the public in community-wide events.

Shepley Bulfinch worked in association with Sweet|Sparkman Architects on this project.

This article originally appeared in the College Planning & Management July/August 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Armstrong World Industries Acquires Parallel Architectural Products

    Armstrong World Industries, provider of interior and exterior architectural applications, recently announced that it has acquired the Colorado-based Parallel Architectural Products, according to a news release.

  • Round Rock ISD Completes New Early College High School

    Round Rock ISD near Austin, Texas, recently announced that construction is complete on a new, 46,500-square-foot campus for Early College High School, according to a news release. The new facility will allow the school’s students and staff to move from portables into a permanent building and increase its enrollment to 500.

  • Northeastern University Breaks Ground on New Housing Community

    Northeastern University recently announced the groundbreaking of a new student housing community on its campus in Boston, Mass., according to a news release. The university is partnering with American Campus Communities (ACC) for development of the project, which will have the capacity for 1,200 students and has a scheduled completion date of fall 2028.

  • Illinois State University Breaks Ground on College of Fine Arts Transformation

    Illinois State University in Normal, Ill., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts transformation project, according to university news. The series of new constructions and renovations will upgrade spaces in Centennial East, the Center for the Visual Arts, and the Center for the Performing Arts, as well as replace the existing Centennial West facility with a new Commons Building.