Flint Public Library earns award for community impact

The Gloria Coles Flint Public Library was honored with a Community Impact Design Award by the American Institute of Architects, Michigan Chapter.

The award recognizes a project that makes a lasting effect upon bringing together a Michigan community and making the place and region stronger.

In a community struggling with systemic socio-economic and social divides, the Flint Public Library sought to transform, renew, revitalize, and reinvent its 1950s building into a modern and flexible beacon for learning and hope. After an interior and exterior renovation, the space has been transformed into an equitable, confident, and aspirational place built for and of its community.

The improved floorplan reclaimed 16,000 square feet of underutilized space, relocating functions with a new layout. Maintaining the original 94,000 square foot perimeter, the redesigned interior floor plan creates various spaces to support the diverse activities of patrons. On the outside, the library integrates new outdoor program spaces, garden, and terraces to encourage and support healing.

As the community continues to recover from a well-known water crisis, library leadership was committed to including a reverse water filtration system that would ensure access to safe water. The library is completed remade into an equitable, confident, and aspirational place both for and of its community.

This is what children deserve, not what they need. They deserve it.”

Kevelin Jones II,  Assistant Superintendent, Flint Community Schools