The Children’s and Teen’s Department at the Indianapolis Public Library’s Central location, will be undergoing its first renovation since it was built in the mid-2000’s. Construction will begin in summer 2024. Throughout this project, our design team will be addressing several factors. 

The space was heavily focused on the technology of the time and needs to accommodate different resources today. The changes will allow the library to provide more technology resources and digital literacy programming to the community in a space that is agile and flexible.

Safety is also critical to create more obvious separation between the adult areas of the building and the children’s area. The current space lacks clear boundaries between the children’s area and the adult area. With that in mind, the children’s collection will be moved entirely on the third floor, minimizing unwanted interactions with adults. This also allowed the collection to be more aligned and for families to experience the library together safely. 

We will also be solving for efficiency in the layout of the collection, which has outgrown the footprint the space was originally designed for, splitting it across multiple floors in burdensome ways.