When Libraries Become Lighthouses

Two neighborhoods in Washington, DC, now glow a little brighter. A pair of libraries, designed by The Freelon Group in association with R. McGhee & Associates and lit by Horton Brogden Lees Lighting Design (HLB), are using light to become more than places to read.

Anacostia Public Library’s finest feature is a 37-foot-tall luminous tower that sits atop the roof. The dynamic structure is lit during evening hours while the library is open but is also designed to provide safety lighting for the neighborhood. Anacostia is an urban neighborhood where residents rely heavily on the services provided by their local library. “The library provides programs, events, community rooms, and computers, and it’s right on a major bus route,” HLB principal Hayden McKay says, explaining that the team was charged with making the new library an inviting, functional, and sustainable one—through its lighting design, of course, but also through the promotion of community outreach and engagement.

Enshrined in glass, the library’s open environment is one way the building interacts with the community; the interior being highly visible from the street beckons residents in. Adding to this already warm invitation, daylight is the primary light source. Fluorescent lights on brackets cantilevered from the stacks illuminate the books. And a distinctive lime-green screen maintains sun control around the glass curtainwalls. “It brightens the building and also is appealing to the younger generation,” says McKay of the near-neon element.

Having the children’s area facing the street provided HLB some creative flexibility, and the team chose “fun, sparkly pendant lights” that help indicate that the library is open and are also highly energy efficient. The rest of the lighting design includes ambient evening lighting via fluorescent glowing slots that run parallel to four skylights, with supplemental metal halide downlights in the main circulation area. To conserve energy, all lighting is programmed with a daylight harvesting system. As a whole, the project was green enough to earn LEED Gold certification and dynamic enough to receive an IES Illumination Award of Merit and an Architectural Lighting Light & Architecture Design Awards Special Citation.

Northwest of Anacostia, the Tenley-Friendship Library—so named for its double constituency in Tenleytown and Friendship Heights—received the HLB treatment and has since become the second most utilized library in the Washington, DC, system. The building’s eastern façade faces bustling Wisconsin Avenue. Inside, linear lines of uplights are integrated into the exposed ceiling beams. Display cases in the entryway give the building a retail feel, and with the help of ambient lighting, books and other items on display can be seen from both sides of the glass during the day and after hours when people use the drop-off box. HLB specified the same controls and luminaires Tenley-Friendship as it had for Anacostia to “increase flexibility for the library maintenance staff,” McKay says.

The most interesting thing about Tenley-Friendship, McKay says, is its exterior vertical fins. “The architect wanted to protect the reading room from the sun without completely blocking the view,” he says, “so we worked to angle the fins toward the north to control the sun while using small perforated holes in the fins to achieve a soft glow of natural daylight.” The integration of daylighting and electrical lighting was key. “The fins created dynamic views at the perimeter, and the resulting daylight successfully integrates with the stack lights to create an animated yet comfortable visual environment,” McKay explains.

Past the perimeter fins, a vibrant copper-colored wall defines the interior circulation area. The wall is illuminated during the day by the atrium skylight and in the evening by a continuous luminous soffit. The only decorative fixtures visible from the exterior are the modern pendant lights above the lobby stairs. In the reading room, interior blinds protect the books during those hours when sun enters through the atrium skylight.

The openness and warmth of these two libraries—linked through their lighting but distinct in design—make both spaces “very comfortable to be in,” McKay says. “You can spend hours inside and feel like you are connected to nature and the neighborhood. So we truly achieved our goals.”

This luminous tower is more than an architectural element: it serves to make the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, DC, safer for residents.