UNCC Library

Client: University of North Carolina
at Charlotte – J Murrey Atkins Library

HGA met with library administration and staff to review existing spaces throughout the building that were not meeting expectations of activities held therein. What was initially introduced as a minor renovation of business areas and reconfiguration of office furniture systems quickly ballooned into the need for a thorough examination of multiple departmental staff and student feedback regarding opportunities for these environments.

Following discussions and site visits documenting affected areas, HGA created spreadsheets detailing each department and modality, their space and equipment needs, as well as adjacencies and other requirements. Once programming was complete, the firm overlaid the information onto the existing floor plan and created a phasing plan to help organize and describe the various components. These included the Center for Digital Scholarship (a digital core for the campus that would encompass various media labs, studios, hybrid instruction classrooms, and multimedia collaboration spaces), Access Services (the functioning heart of the library comprised of Interlibrary Loan, Reserves, Circulation, and other business activities), Special Collections Digitization Lab (to aid in preservation), Intellectual Property (a place for students and faculty to meet with Copyright Lawyers and other professionals), and a dedicated Graduate Reading Room (a more private area for Graduate student use).

HGA created renderings to aid in funding and sponsorship opportunities before continuing the schematic design phase.