The Honan-Allston Branch Library is designed around values important to the Boston Public Library and the neighborhood: maximizing visual control, providing a reading garden that serves as many spaces as possible, creating off-hours access for community use, and siting a prominent reading room on the front of the building. 

The building is divided into three parallel zones: the front zone contains all the active, information-gathering program components, including the stacks. In the rear zone, meeting and program spaces are available for off-hours access. A transparent middle zone, populated by alternating gardens and glass pavilions, provides calming spaces for reading. In one of the gardens, a longstanding beech tree has been carefully preserved within the building’s new spatial organization.  

Slate shingles and panels, rough slate blocks, and wood cladding lend warmth to the building’s exterior finishes, while natural-finished wood windows, some fixed and some operable, provide views, air, and light. Inside, wood and cork floors echo the exterior’s warm materials.