Mill Woods Library and Seniors Multi-Cultural Centre

This City of Edmonton and Edmonton Public Library facility provides an inclusive, inviting and ﬂexible facility that meets the changing and expanding needs of the community, and acts as a community focal point for the area. The Mill Woods Library, Seniors and Multicultural Centre houses both a branch library as well as an seniors community activity facility.

The challenging context demanded a design that distinguished itself as a civic space in a suburban context without a pedestrian scale. The design is conceived as an opaque volume from which the public space has been “carved”, with support spaces hidden within the “solid” portions of the building’s form. This strategy allows us to distinguish between the more closed and cellular functions of the seniors centre above, and the open and ﬂexible space of the Library below. It also allows the building to express itself at multiple scales: as a volume at the scale of the ﬂat prairie surroundings (maintaining a strong presence among the big-box commercial surroundings), and as human-scale spaces that are modulated to suit the spaces within.

The project falls within the relaxed shopping mall zoning category, however the project subscribes to many principles put forth in the City of Edmonton’s Smart Choices initiative and the Transit Oriented Development Guidelines. The project also follows the City of Edmonton’s Sustainable Building policy requiring minimum LEED-Silver certiﬁcation and is currently on target to achieve LEED-Gold status.

Project Information

Owner: City Of Edmonton Edmonton Public Library

Architect: Dub Architects and Hcma Architecture + Design

Project Location: 2610 Hewes Way