Breaking the Box: Trinity Students Design an Addition to the Raether Library

What does the library of the future look like? In spring 2025, Visiting Professor of Practice Rob Rothblatt, known for his lead role in designing the Sacramento Kings’ arena Golden1, taught the “Elements of Architectural Design” course at Trinity College. For their final project, students were tasked with building models for an addition to the Raether Library which would complement the newly completed glass-lined panoramic vistas afforded by the newly-opened Scully Center (part of Ferris Athletic Center). The challenge for the class was to add a new or second “front” to the existing back of the library, thereby both buildings would recall the Greek ideal of elevating the mind and the body in unison.

As Professor Rothblatt commented, “Our Design class at Trinity is tailored as a kind of amuse-bouche menu of basic but fundamental architectural ideas. And ideas are the bread and butter of the liberal arts – as opposed to more practice-oriented curriculum in professional schools. Therefore, we concentrate on short projects which give introductions to the idea of spatial movement and paths, hierarchy of spaces, general scale, and the basic definition of spaces: How many walls do you need to make a space? What does it mean for a space to flow into another space? For our models, all made by hand, we concentrate on basic principles of just opacity (white board) and transparency (open)….We don’t get beyond into other materials.”

Each year a different building on Trinity’s campus is re-imagined through student models. In the case of the new extension to the Library, students thought of a variety of new and unorthodox uses for this add-on to the library, including an anatomy lab, a recreational retreat, a museum, and a natural oasis with tree plantings.

It’s not the first time that a major expansion of the library has been proposed for the rear of the building. Built originally in the early 1950s, the current library building has undergone several renovations, first in the late 1970s, then again in the late 1990s. During both of these expansions, architects proposed dramatically larger building footprints and incorporated innovative needs such as a museum gallery space. Both times, the plans had to be scaled back or re-imagined. More information about the library’s history may be found in Encyclopedia Trinitiana.

Developed by the Watkinson Library, this exhibit “Breaking the Box” displays a selection of the final-project models which the class produced, along with a handful of historical materials from the Trinity College Archives. The temporary exhibition will be on display in the Level A Gallery of the Scheuch Atrium in Raether Library until January 2026. We invite you to come and see what Trinity students have created.

Main exhibit designer: Eric Stoykovich, College Archivist and Manuscript Librarian, Watkinson Library.

With assistance from librarians Amanda Matava and Eric Johnson-DeBaufre.