MIDDLETOWN FREE LIBRARY

Client: Middletown Township
Location: Media, PA
Date: Ongoing, Fall 2021
Area: 25,000 sq. ft.

Synopsis:

In neighborhoods across the country, there are buildings that inspire a sense of collective purpose, civic pride, and shared experience. However, many of these buildings have suffered from years of disinvestment and deferred maintenance. As a local landmark, The Roosevelt School was formative for the education of thousands of Middletown Township residents and as a civic beacon. Over the past two decades the Roosevelt School has languished, until 2016 when it was purchased by the Township as a site to locate various scattered civic services.

Erdy McHenry Architecture has transformed the Roosevelt Elementary School into a new Community Center and Library. As a contemporary library, it goes beyond books to include Community Outreach and Education functions that teach through experiential and tactile means.

The central atrium space will be surrounded by Tutoring Rooms, a Recording Studio, Community Collaboration Spaces and a hands-on Maker Space that will feature hands-on robotics and digital fabrication learning for the local community.

The central gathering space will display a 2-story digitally fabricated sculpture created by Penn's Robotics Lab at the Weitzman School of Design. The sculpture will be on permanent exhibit at the community center as an outreach ambassador for the University of Pennsylvania and will be an example for young students to see the technical and artful outcomes for careers in digital technologies.

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