The site was a decommissioned rail spur running through the center of Meridian, with a nine-foot grade change from one end to the other that every prior proposal had treated as a problem to flatten. We treated it as the organizing idea.
The library steps down with the original grade in a series of half-level reading terraces, each opening onto the next through full-height glazing. The result is a single continuous volume that never reads as more than two stories from any one point, despite covering 42,000 square feet across five level changes.
Construction reused roughly 60% of the original rail spur’s foundation piers, reducing new concrete pour by an estimated 30% against a conventional foundation for the same footprint.
The building won the AIA National Honor Award in 2026 and was recognized separately by Architectural Record as a Building of the Year in 2021.