Future Library Design: Enduring Principles, Contemporary Processes, & Emerging Possibilities
Discover library design best practices, tour a world-famous library, and apply your new learnings in group design exercises.
This program is followed by Academic Libraries Reimagined: Designing Spaces and Programs for 2025 and Beyond.
Curious about what to expect when coming to campus? Please visit our Campus Learning page.
Explore emerging models and evolving changes in library environments, considering how recent service models, information/communication technology, and community considerations influence contemporary library facility design.
This program is intended for architects and librarians, library staff, and trustees and examines the evolving role and configuration of the physical library in the 21st century, with an additional emphasis on translating essential design principles into built projects.
What to Expect
Interactive design exercises in groups
Tour of the Boston Public Library led by the instructor team
The course is envisioned as a forum for developing our understanding of future library facilities as:
- essential elements of civic infrastructure,
- platforms for meaningful community dialog,
- productive “think space” & “do space,” and
- the definitive resource for reliable information.
We will consider how future library buildings can do this while being permanent artifacts of contemporary culture and a moldable environment that stays constantly current and locally relevant. The course is structured to include a site visit, expert in-class presentations and discussions, and group exercises and reviews as we conceive lasting opportunities for library spaces for the coming decades.
We will collectively discuss and determine emerging service initiatives developing along the trajectory of 21st-century library evolution. With this background, we will visit the recently renovated Boston Public Library via guided tour.
Then, using our on-site observations, we will do in-class group exercises to explore frameworks for enhancing spaces to resonate with emerging initiatives.
Additionally, we will explore the influence of external forces shaping library environments, including increasing diverse communities, sustainability, and biophilic design.
For past attendees of this program, we encourage you to return for a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the Boston Public Library, and an all-new session on capital projects in library design, led by Wendy Tressler, President 2023-2024 and Past President 2024-2025 of ALA Core.
Instructor
Jeffrey M. Hoover, AIA
Principal, Tappé Architects
Guest Speakers
David Leonard
President, Boston Public Library
Sarah Meilleur
CEO, Calgary Public Library
Shannon Wray
Principal for Interior Design, Quinn Evans Architects
Wendy Tressler
ALA Core Past President & Director, Planning & Strategy Officer at Columbus Metropolitan Library
Bill Browning
Biophilic Design Guru at Terrapin Bright Green
So great to have library professionals complement the architects.
[Jeff Hoover] is very detailed and loves to challenge his students in order to foster good feedback for future design use.
Participant Stories
Matthew Sheehy
University Librarian of Brandeis University
Registration is now open
Future Library Design: Enduring Principles, Contemporary Processes, & Emerging Possibilities
August 5, 6, & 7, 2025 | 9:00am – 5:00pm EDT
Harvard University Campus
Tuition: $2,190 until May 31, $2,390. Save 10% with joint registration.
CEUs: 21 AIA LUs (HSW), 21 AICP/CM, 21 LA/CES (HSW)
AMDP Elective Units: 3
Program size is limited and early registration is recommended.
Discounts & Deadlines
Save 10% when you register for this program and Academic Libraries Reimagined (August 8, 2025) at the same time.
Please email us at [email protected] with any questions and to ask about group signup.
Registration Deadline: 24 hours before the start of the program.