Duke University – Lilly Library

Durham, North Carolina

Early Concept Sketch of Lilly Library

Lilly Library, constructed in 1927, serves as one of the core buildings on Duke’s East Campus. While originally designed by Horace Trumbauer and Julian Abele as the Women’s College, East Campus now supports Duke’s First-Year Experience program. Lilly Library features collections in the humanities and visual arts. As first-year enrollment growth continues, the renovation and expansion of the Lilly Library supports student success, providing academic resources and community-building environments. A carefully scaled addition will increase the gross area from 42,000 to about 66,000 square feet, add some two hundred seats, and introduce technology-rich project rooms, in effect turning Lilly into the academic and social heart of a revitalized East Campus. The project centers around the evolution of the library from its historic role as a container and place for individual scholarship to a dynamic academic and social space inviting collaboration, study, encounter, and exploration. The program includes group and project rooms, academic support spaces, classroom, a screening room, maker space, a large café, as well as traditional reading rooms, staff spaces, and stack space.

The design approach to the cladding of the addition presented a significant challenge. The limited existing palette of Georgian red brick and Vermont marble could not be matched exactly and needed to be augmented. studioDSK worked closely with the University through mockups, sample boards, site visits, and renderings to develop a material approach that exemplifies the new welcoming, permeable, forward-looking library while maintaining the proportions and rhythms of the historic building.

Civil Engineer

McAdams

Surface 678

Landscape Architect

LeChase Construction

MEP Engineer

Newcomb & Boyd

Structural Engineer

Lynch Mykins

Specifications

Architx

Acoustic Consultant

Newcomb & Boyd

Audio Visual Consultant

Newcomb & Boyd

Lighting Design

Newcomb & Boyd

Code Consultant

Hastings Consulting, Inc.

Food Service Consultant

Porter Khouw

Building Science Consultant

Wiss-Janney-Elstner Associates Inc.

Hardware Consultant

Campbell McCabe

Reviving the Core of Duke’s East Campus

Composition

The Lilly Library expansion creates an opportunity to define a new primary open space for Duke’s East Campus. The East Lawn is framed by the new addition, with a contemporary façade and student patio. studioDSK referenced the 1961 Olmsted Bros. plan for inspiration. In 2008, Duke developed a plan for a new East-West Pedestrianway, linking the historic core campus to the surrounding neighborhoods. The Library expansion fully realizes this campus planning goal with a new pedestrian pathway, architectural identity, and primary library entrance.

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Down to the Details

The Lilly project reinvents a beautiful building material found on campus. At the head of the historic East Quad stands Baldwin Auditorium with a signature dome clad in Ludowici clay tiles. studioDSK worked closely with Ludowici to develop a clay tile façade application for the Library addition. This new use of a historic material creates a visual connection to the surrounding context. Adjacent buildings are comprised of red brick, marble, and copper. The color range developed in the clay tile knits the campus together, while creating a signal for future buildings on campus.