New Sawyer Library Design as of May 2008

Plans for the new library/IT center and the renovation of Stetson Hall are moving forward at a brisk pace. Work on Stetson will begin in late summer 2008 or as soon as faculty and staff have been relocated to temporary quarters or the new academic buildings. The following are a few interior and exterior studies to provide a sense of what New Sawyer will look like. We expect that a full set of interior and exterior elevations will be available here toward the end of 2008 when the project's construction drawings are completed.

West elevation, Stetson and New Sawyer addition. View is from the green created after the demolition of the existing Sawyer Library. The library addition, clad in green slate, is visible immediately to the left of Stetson. The new North Academic Building frames the image on the extreme left, the South Academic Building on the extreme right.

This is the library's east elevation, as if one were standing on Southworth Street and looking toward Stetson Hall, which can be made out in the background. Roughly in the center of the new construction is the clerestory opening that provides natural light for New Sawyer's atrium.

This drawing shows the floorplan of Stetson Hall and New Sawyer on Level 3, the building's entry level. The upper right quadrant of the floorplan shows the Reference area. To the upper left, and marked in yellow, are book stacks. At the bottom of the image you can see the restored Stetson Reading Room, a classroom (formerly the reading room of Williams College Archives & Special Collections) and a teleconferencing room. The bottom center of the drawing shows the existing Stetson lobby, which will take patrons into a new atrium (formerly housing the building's cast-iron book stacks) and the library's Circulation desk.

South elevation of Stetson and New Sawyer.

This interior study shows new construction: an atrium space connected to the east side of Stetson Hall.

This stairway will take patrons from the Level 3 entrance in Stetson down to the Center for Media Initiatives, an IT center, on Level 2. Natural light is provided by the south-facing clerestory.