Advertisement

Now the fun part: Designing a new 'iconic' library for Ottawa

Article content

Tim Tierney is giddy at the thought of debating what a new main library should look like.

Advertisement

Story continues below

Article content

The chair of the Ottawa Public Library board of trustees was clearly relieved Tuesday night after clearing the first hurdle to finalizing a site and business partnership for a relocated main library.

At the end of a meeting that lasted more than four hours, the board voted in favour of a proposal to partner with Library and Archives Canada to build a $168-million joint facility at 557 Wellington St., just west of Bronson Avenue.

After council votes on the project next Wednesday, and assuming it passes, OPL and city staff will begin thinking about how to hire an architect.

Does the city go with a standard request for proposals (RFP) process or do something a little more flashy through an open design competition?

A design competition is by no means a slam dunk.

Advertisement

Story continues below

Article content

Tierney, a city councillor, said the OPL has already collected plenty of feedback from residents about what they want in a new main library. 

“If you go to a design competition, they might (design) something that looks interesting but doesn’t have the functional capability,” Tierney said. “That’s why it’s really important to define the interior before you make the decision on which avenue, whether it’s a pure RFP, going out and picking your designer, or going to any kind of design competition.”

Tierney noted renowned architects – the “gods of the libraries,” as he described them – have already expressed interest in the OPL’s main library project.

“I am positive we are going to have the best of the best creating something great for the city,” Tierney said.

Advertisement

Story continues below

Article content

Mayor Jim Watson, who described the current main library on Metcalfe Street as a “bunker,” said the city needs a great design for a landmark building.

“I’m open to the idea of a design competition. I think we want to get something that is iconic, that will be talked about for decades to come,” Watson said. “We’ve seen some great examples in Canada with Montreal, Vancouver and Halifax. This is a very important piece of land that has a beautiful vista and view of the water and the pump house. Let’s aim as high as we can to get the best possible breadth of choices.”

Potentially tight timelines could play a role in how the OPL and city decide on a design contractor.

Council won’t approve a financial strategy until at least June and the OPL wants to break ground in 2018, almost certainly before the municipal election campaigning ramps up that summer.

Advertisement

Story continues below

Article content

Of course, Library and Archives Canada would need to agree with any design-related plans.

A design competition would likely require the city and Library and Archives Canada to assemble a jury, hold open houses and pay competitors honoraria to participate.

The city last held an international design competition for the urban park at Lansdowne Park. Council approved a competition budget of $375,000 for a park that eventually cost about $46 million to build. The city had to pare the winning design to fit the construction budget.

For now, the OPL is focused on seeing which architecture firms are interested in the project.

Monique Désormeaux, the deputy chief executive officer of the OPL, said a the process would be open to architect bidders from across the world.

Désormeaux said the OPL intends to start with a request for qualifications to shortlist architects that would be invited to compete in a request for proposals process.

“That’s still in the planning stages at this point. We haven’t worked out all those particular details,” Désormeaux said. “Right now we’re just trying to get through council.”

jwilling@postmedia.com

twitter.com/JonathanWilling

Latest National Stories

Advertisement

Story continues below

This Week in Flyers
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/now-the-fun-part-designing-a-new-iconic-library
ottawacitizen.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2021-31
308024
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:RSYDSJMCZTSD4HX6LP2K46YUMX6POABP
<urn:uuid:1aec9480-e9e1-40ad-bafa-b56f844b98d2>
2021-08-02T10:12:51Z
3.97.25.230
text/html
sha1:VP5BFA57KRZLTBMA64QSAHCZMZZBL7K4
<urn:uuid:f91ba9ae-f866-4009-9bce-9636f399e970>
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/now-the-fun-part-designing-a-new-iconic-library
response
<urn:uuid:8637ae92-2533-4761-91d2-3f2f2a603677>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2021-31
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for July/August 2021
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-213.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/