Clear solutions in the heart of the city

Manhattan Beach Library

Manhattan Beach, CA, USA

In response to the heightened demand for library services by the local community, the new Manhattan Beach Library was created to replace the existing facility. Our client aimed to provide the area with a building that not only serves its educational and cultural needs but also stands as a beautiful and inviting hub for the community.

The architect translated these requirements into a striking, 2-story building that is flanked by sweeping glass facades on each side. These allow users inside to look out over Manhattan Beach and the Pacific Ocean, and draws those outside into the welcoming interior space.

Achieved LEED Gold certification

2-story building flanked by sweeping glass facades on each side

The efficient facade gives the appearance of a continuous wall of glass, providing a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean

Challenge

Buro Happold was engaged to realize this complex design. Such vast expanses of glass posed a number of problems, including structural strength and resilience, solar glare, heat gain and loss, and day to day maintenance and cleaning.

Solution

Working as an integrated team, our engineers were able to combine their different areas of expertise in order to reach the optimum solution for these issues, which was the use of a double skin facade system. Our MEP team performed extensive modeling of the building and facade to ascertain the best materials to use for optimum durability and transparency of the exterior glazed components, and maximum solar control in the secondary skin without impacting the clean, minimalist aesthetic of the architectural concept. The result is an efficient facade which has the appearance of a continuous wall of glass, providing a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean.

Value

We identified the potential pitfalls, worked together to resolve them, and then coordinated the other disciplines working on the project to ensure the architect’s intent was viable right from the initial phases of design development.

Our engineers played a pivotal role in realizing the ambitious design for this new library, which achieved LEED Gold certification.

_{David Herd, Managing Director}