Costa Mesa Donald Dungan Library
City of Costa Mesa | Costa Mesa, CA
Size and Cost:
30,000 SF; $28 MTimeline:
2014 - February 2020LEED Certified:
GoldTEAM:
PRINCIPALS:
Steve Johnson, Jim FavaroPROJECT ARCHITECT:
Steve JohnsonASSOCIATE PRINCIPALS:
Brian DavisDESIGN ASSOCIATES:
Ryan EkstromAWARDS:
AIA ORANGE COUNTY
Merit Award - Commercial Built Category, 2022ENGINEERING NEWS RECORD - CALIFORNIA
Best Cultural/Worship Project, 2021SCDF DESIGN AWARDS
Civic Project, 2021Photographer:
Eric LaignelVideographer:
Bread Truck FilmsPublications:
Interior Design, March 2020
The new Costa Mesa branch of the County of Orange Public Library occupies a site in the heart of Lions Park. The two-story library accommodates approximately 22,500 SF including all the components of a complete, fully functioning branch of the county library system. These include two community meeting rooms, the marketplace/popular library, friends-of-the-library bookstore, young adult library, children's library, adult technology stations, study rooms, readers seats and collections. The library is part of a larger project that includes the redevelopment of Lion’s Park for a large outdoor community event space, gardens, concessions kiosk and recreational areas as well as renovation of the old library to become a new community meeting center. The architecture of the new library models flamboyant mid-20th century modernist architecture (such as John Wayne airport or the JFK TWA terminal) that was in vogue when cities like Costa Mesa came of age in combination with early California architecture (such as the original Spanish settlers’ adobe structures and the Junipero Serra missions) to create an entirely new architecture that is at once surprising and rooted in its place.