Co-imagining a new Austin Community Center at the Faulk Library
In 2017, Austin opened a brand new library, leaving the former central library, a historic brutalist building in the center of downtown Austin, vacant. Knowing that this building could be a valuable asset for the city and its citizens, The City of Austin partnered with Gensler and the Austin community to re-imagine how the building could serve Austin and its residents in a new way.
Project services
Stakeholder interviews
Community co-design workshop
City employee co-design workshop
Experience strategy
Visual storytelling
Team
Bonnie Reese - Strategy Director
Myself - Experience Designer
My role
Developed the experience strategy in collaboration with Bonnie Reese and input from community members and city employees
Led creative direction, design and production of storytelling assets and deliverables, including illustrated visuals, copy writing, and presentation design
Designed and facilitated workshops in partnership with Bonnie Reese
The process
Through a series of stakeholder interviews and collaborative design workshops with city employees and a diverse group of citizen experts, we developed a collective vision for the future of the Faulk Library building and its function: a next-generation Austin community center, which brought together the adjacent Austin History Archive with community programming focused on civic dialogue, collaborative visioning, and neighborhood activation.
“People from all communities must have a place here.”
“I think Austin is so focused on moving forward that we don’t understand the past, and that’s hindering us from moving forward in the right way.”
— Austin citizen
“[It could be] a living learning lab–this building itself would be viewed as a lab for creativity and whatever civic needs we have.”
— Austin citizen
The outcome
To ensure that citizen perspectives were maintained as the design process moved forward, we synthesized the conversations from our working sessions to develop a guiding vision statement, a set of eight experience principles and six hero concepts with supporting visuals that illustrated the vision for the space and the range of experiences intended to support it.
T H E V I S I O N
This vibrant center in the heart of downtown will be a beacon for all to discover Austin’s history, discuss its present, and shape its future. It will encourage discovery, reflection and informed dialogue, inviting the public to tell their own stories and experience the stories of others. It will include an accessible archive, exhibitions, flexible spaces for community events, collaboration, and learning. It will be a welcoming place for all Austin communities to come together.