To date the Robin Hood organization has built 31 libraries with the continued support of architects such as NYC-based partnership Tod Williams and Billie Tsien of Tod Williams Billie Tsien & Associates. David Allin held the following conversation with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, and Joe Daniels and Ankur Shah of Robin Hood.

The L!brary Initiative is a ground-breaking partnership of the Robin Hood Foundation and the New York City Department of Education. The Initiative is creating libraries that make the imagination soar and the heart sing. Behind the inspiring graphics, specially designed furniture, and thousands upon thousands of new books is the fundamental goal of improving literacy and achievement in public elementary schools.

With support from the Mayor, corporate donors, and a team of volunteer architects, the partners are developing a blueprint to turn elementary school libraries into vibrant centers of teaching and learning that will serve as both a resource and catalyst to improve instruction. Each library is equipped with the latest technology, a carefully selected and extensive collection of books, and flexible space to accommodate multi-purposes. To staff the new, sophisticated facilities, the Initiative is helping librarians gain Masters Degrees in Library Education in collaboration with Syracuse University.

- from www.robinhood.org

David Allin: How did you get involved with Robin Hood and the library initiative?

Bille Tsien: It really sort of boiled down to Lonni Tanner and her amazing, wonderful, and sort of bulldozerish personality. She's really great. She came to us and said, “We want you to do this library at a public school,” and we wanted to do it, but at the same time like everybody you're thinking, “Oh my god, this is extra work. How am I going to fit it in? And she was such a positive force that in the end it was just impossible to say no. So we did the first library, and we felt very happy with it. We enjoyed doing it. And then she came back and she said, “I'd like you to do a few more,” and we were like, “No Lonni, go away!” But once again she prevailed, and once again I think we're really happy we've done it - they're not quite finished.

Tod Williams: As Billie said, we wanted to do this work as a public service, and it comes to people who really need it. At the same time there is no convincing way on a business level that it should be done first time round or second time round, but the pleasure and the results are such that it's in every way a rewarding experience, even as Lonni has tripled our effort the second time around, thinking that three would be easier than just three times one. Three is a little easier, but not very much. One of our libraries is in Manhattan, and two are in the Bronx. They're fairly far from one another, but actually that also makes them more interesting because they are different places. It is also interesting, because although we thought we did a good job, and we loved doing the first one, there was also criticism of the first one that we thought we could improve on in working with the second round. And that's exciting to be able to make your work better if possible. And I think that although our projects are not complete, I feel that we have at least addressed those issues that were there on the first one and resolved them in an interesting and positive way while retaining the basic integrity of our approach to libraries.

PS101- Interior Photos and Section. View more in image gallery

In the initial phase of the project there were 10 architecture firms working on essentially the same problem. How were you influenced by this interaction?

TW: One of the things I thought we learned from them is that I thought our efforts should be a little more playful the second time around. I mean, on the spectrum of things we're not children in a sandbox.

BT: We're not the most playful.

TW: We're not the most playful. But one the things we wanted were for our library to have a certain amount of dignity. And that's what we always liked about libraries. Billie was actually a librarian in high school.

BT: I shelved books.

TW: Well, assistant librarian. And I treasured our public library. And I don't know to what extent it aided us in our lives, but I think the kids should feel great about the space in which there are good books, and learning to read. We also wanted it to be something that could endure. So that they could come back, as Billie did for many years, to the library and remember those times when you picked up a particular book or someone directed you to a book, and you had a moment in a corner with a book. I think they should be treasured memories. We wanted this to be something that could actually last, even though we realize it's just an interior.

Is it more fun designing for children?

BT: Of course you always design for yourself a little. I'm a huge book worm. I can never be without a book that I'm reading and two other books on reserve in case I finish. So the idea of a library, any library, but particularly a library for children is an emotionally satisfying project. I used to hide from my parents by taking a book and going inside the shower stall in their bathroom and sitting inside there and just reading for hours. It was a kind of refuge. The ability to make a place of refuge, and also a place with a sense of magic inside a public school that kids may be able to remember, maybe when they're teenagers, maybe when they're adults, and look back. I think that's wonderful. It's not just about designing a library, or the library as a special problem, it's very much a chance to give the possibility of a special memory to kids, and have that memory be associated with books.

TW: Two things we did to improve on the library - the walls are essentially books in these libraries, 10,000 books or more, and that itself is a certain magic. In these newer libraries we are simply creating an extension of this undulating wall of books that forms a series of alcoves that give a sense of place to this rectangular space. And that way we have a storytelling area, and a parent's reading area, and a nook, and a computer station, and an entry vestibule where messages and special things can be put up. So within the rather ordinary form of a rectangle we decided to create this undulating wall of books. And I think that two of the areas where we improved are the idea of a ceiling that has a level of color and interest, which exists in all four of our libraries, but the monumental quality of our original library ceiling is no longer three. We've improved the lighting within the library and for the books by reducing our attention to the ceiling itself. We've also adjusted the sightlines so that it's easier for a single person to observe basically all the children without hovering over them. Those were two criticisms and two areas that we were able to improve on.

BT: What do you guys feel is the important improvement of the second phase?

Joe Daniels: In the first round we had 10 architects each doing one library, and in this new round that is essentially double in size, we wanted to bring back some of our favorites from the first round. But one of the big challenges for Robin Hood is being the intermediary through which firms like yours can impact the public schools. So our biggest challenge is making this project compelling and doable so that we can continue it at a bigger scale. When we asked you to do three we knew that it would be something you absolutely wanted to do, but it's not the easiest decision given the real life business situation. But now if we're going to do another round, and we want our favorites back from this round, when we come back again”¦

TW: (Laughs)

JD: ”¦how do we do it in a way that will make you want to go forward in even a bigger way?

BT: (Laughs)

TW: Well you did some things this time around. You administered it in a much more sensible and sane way - that's helped us a whole lot. And we're blessed to have a single contractor work from one right through the others. We made an inadvertently lucky, nearly brilliant, choice when we started working on the first library with a wonderful cabinet maker and chose to put books in real living shelves. In this round we've retained that same person and he has been an even stronger presence, Fred Bauerschmidt as we've done these other three. So we're blessed by Robin Hood helping us do our work in a more efficient way so we can keep our costs down. Then we're blessed by a few people, a contractor, a super, and a fantastic cabinet maker.

BT: I have another question because it is a great opportunity to impact kids in the public school system. And there are hundreds of young architects who would throw themselves at you. And in your first round, when people are so full of ideas and so eager, a lot of a mistakes can be made because people often see it as a kind of proving ground for their ideas. But it would be interesting to try a mentor system or something; this would be a great opportunity for someone. They want to do public work, because they've done their loft, and they've done their kitchens, and they've done their bathroom renovations. To have the opportunity to design a library, but to have a little bit of reigning in by an older architect who can help them from making it too expensive, from making it too particular, making it”¦.

TW: But Bille, we had a series of these meetings, and I'm not sure that mentoring would in fact be a kind of burden to them.

BT: Well, I don't know what else there is.

TW: In various meeting we did bring in people who were in the second round, and who had succeeded in the first, and we talked about the lessons learned. And I know it was very valuable to some of them. It may have been especially valuable to you at Robin Hood, and Joe and Ankur, who would then encourage, insist, or demand that they learn certain lessons. Although it is fantastic to imagine that our first ten schools could produce ten very different libraries. And if those ten libraries then beget another ten from each of those we suddenly have a hundred or a thousand and we will have accomplished the task. But every single one of them will be different and ultimately as many successes as there will be we will have the multiplication of all of the failures. So it's difficult to be both creative in this and break new ground, we've broken very little new ground I should say, but also to be productive and produce a library that people really want to use for years and years.

Because of the scale of this repetition you've mentioned there is the potential to systematically and rigorously evaluate completed projects, and I know that Robin Hood has in fact hired a company to perform evaluations, looking at statistical information such as the students' performance on test scores, interest in reading, and so forth. I'm wondering how this systematic approach to evaluating an architectural project affects your own instinctive methods of understanding your work. It's rare that architects are given a report card like this, how do you respond to it?

TW: Well it's a complicated point. Robin Hood is doing several things. They're building libraries, and we're architects for these libraries, but they are also creating libraries and systems of learning. And I'm not sure which is the most effective, whether it's the library as a physical artifact or the system of learning. And how does that relate to the readiness of the school that it's impacting? I'm not sure. I'm sure there is some science to that evaluation, but the qualitative aspects are super important and very difficult to evaluate, particularly as there are at least three distinct components. I mentioned one is the place and people who are already there, in fact as a teacher I know the student body of every single class always has their own direction that makes them a great class or a weak class, and it's not because the individuals are necessarily strong or weak, but it's a collective thing. So there's a lot going on there, then there's a lot that really happens via the method of teaching and learning and the people and the books that are there. Then architecture of course plays a role and I don't know that it's easy to scientifically analyze it, but I'm happy to do the best we can with the tools we're given. I think we should be ready for criticism and ready to learn from success as well.

BT: It's so hard. You know, I can't quote it, but Louis Kahn was famous for making these sort of seemingly wise but incomprehensible statements. When he talks about architecture making the measurable immeasurable, and the immeasurable measurable, a sort of vise versa. I don't really see the relationship between, at least why I believe in making these libraries, and some quantitative test scores. Because it doesn't have to do with word recognition or necessarily being able to spell, but letting a child know that books exist, and that they are a wonderful possibility. So for me, and I don't know exactly what the scores are, but to try to make it quantifiable by looking at the reading scores and how they change from one year to another year once there is a library in place seems to me to be kind beside the point.

TW: Anyway, I would guess that these things work in an accumulative way, not in an incremental way. Certainly the incremental is real, the day to day existence of everyone is a fact, but if these are to make an impact I think it will be an accumulative impact. And that won't be assessed for years and I don't know if it can be identified even after several years. Because it could be that germ that touched half the class who have been in here and we begin to see it when they enter high school.

BT: Or is it the parent? Is it the relationship between a parent and a child?

TW: The fact that it gives a parent more joy to come here and feel that they are in a coherent and clear place where the child is safe and that adjusts not the reading scores but actually the relationship between the parent and the child at home and thus improves the quality of life in another way.

JD: I think it's a very interesting question and I think that teasing it out ultimately will prove to be very difficult. But I think that that is exactly the reason that there is the space itself, and we really do believe that will ignite the love of reading. But to cover our bets, we want to go in with the systems and make sure there is a full time librarian and a para-professional and do the technical assistance to get the program of what happens in the library there to maximize the space itself. So you do have those two drivers of improvement and it's going to be hard to tease out which one is the primary driver, but the theory is that you need both to make a difference in learning. The secondary effect is that we have better learners and hopefully that gets reflected in performance in a measurably way. Generally you're trying to get kids excited, and you want kids to read. That's the bottom line.

Ankur Shah: I think that education is a social function and it's going to difficult to take out what the critical enabling factor is between the systems, the method, the people, and the place. But I think that each of them are essential in some little way to allow children to think, which is the purpose of our project in terms of improving literacy, in terms of improving how they learn. As apposed to just increasing test scores.

TW: It's a little as if you were asked to identify the improvement in basketball scores on a team by team basis, and on what criteria. Is it because of the chemistry of the team, the new facility they've been put in the management the coaching and so on. And why do we have some fabulously endowed franchises that continue to fail year after year with others that succeed on little. So I think there are an awful lot of factors, and I think that it may be interesting but I think that it is not a determining factor to look at those statistics. And if we think they are truth we are very mistaken.

You've spoken in the past about an interest in slowness as an approach to design and have critiqued certain efficient systems that become ingrained in the architectural profession. I'm wondering in a project like this that has such limitations on time and budget how you restructure your working methods, or how it alters your approach to the problem.

TW: That's a very good question. Bille, why don't you take it over, I think I can answer it as well.

BT: Well I think what we did was to establish certain similarities, and within those similarities we made variations. So each library of these three are very related in their cabinet work, in the way the cabinet work is used to define the spaces, and in the fact that there is a very strong color on the ceiling. And in terms of details each one has a rug that was custom made but it's the same pattern, and this is also to save money, and there are only three colors, but at each school the same pattern of colors are shifted so one color becomes dominant and the other colors are subservient to the main color. So there are ways in which we essentially took one model and then each time twisted it. There is one school, which is a hundred year old school, and it has very high ceilings and it is quite a different condition in terms of the space because there are also columns versus the two other schools that are from the 50's and 60's that are flat pancakes of space. So that did cause some spatial differences, but essentially it's the same idea that is shifted.

TW: But the question is how this relates to slowness.

BT: I know.

TW: For me the answer is, because we were very restricted in budget, and fees, and we wanted to produce a high level of quality work, we immediately seized on things we could confirm - confirming the cabinet maker. We confirmed that we were going to make cabinets in a similar way, but slightly different than the ones that were done before, and that he would have a stronger presence in actually laying out the space. Just as we identified certain standards we also identified some things we could confirm, and once we could do that it gave us a little bit more time to think about the differences and to make sure that as we looked at the differences they could be altered to be specific and appropriate, and ultimately built well.