As the fastest-growing metro area in the nation, the City of Grand Rapids wants to provide solutions to its parking demand. The City sought to explore alternative options to a traditional parking structure for a surface lot next to the Ryerson Library. Fishbeck teamed with Carl Walker/WGI to provide bold and visionary design ideas that focused on mixed-use opportunities, sustainability, sensitivity to the existing library, and activating the public street.
The site features a significant change in topography, which was a major consideration and inspiration throughout the study. In each concept, the southern portion of the site was reserved as open park space to soften the facility and preserve views of the historic library.
The concepts focused on studying and analyzing the existing architecture, interpreting these into a contemporary vernacular to create a unified campus; creating the maximum amount of parking space while maintaining traditional building typologies; and designing programmable space to serve the library and surrounding neighborhood. The City took all concepts into consideration for future development.
