News & Insights

It’s National Library Week and this year’s theme is ‘There’s More to the Story’. At WTW, our Library story begins with understanding how people use and connect in libraries. Understanding the wavelengths of connection allows us to utilize library programming in our projects to bring students and the campus community together through a multitude of features and spaces.

As libraries and what they mean to a campus continues to evolve, the key to any successful library design is understanding the needs of the library’s infrastructure and creating flexible spaces that maximize the capabilities of the building. We understand that libraries are not only a space for studying anymore, they are spaces for community building, virtual classes, interview preparation, research, digital creation, and more. We often use design elements such as raised floors and demountable partitions to create these spaces that can accommodate individual study one hour and a group presentation, or career fair the next.

As the design of flexible learning spaces continues to evolve, our team utilizes these tools and more to program and create spaces that have more to the story than just one use and can serve a campus in all the ways that they need and can serve future generations of students and faculty.

Pictured are examples of flexible learning spaces that WTW designed for @pennstate.
Left: College of Engineering, Reber Building – Gursahaney Family E-Knowledge Commons
Right: University Libraries – West Pattee Library Collaboration Commons