Roseville Library - Ramsey County
Roseville, MN

Damon Farber Associates was part a multidisciplinary team for the remodeling and expansion of the State’s most utilized library, the Ramsey County Roseville Library. Sustainable site design features that contributed to LEED Gold were the re-use of the existing parking lot, native and adapted plants, no irrigation, and restoration of habitat. Capturing of rain water in a variety of stormwater management gardens and features contributed to a stormwater system which has exceeded the expectations of the Watershed District and serves as a demonstration project.

Working closely with Library staff, an outdoor learning environment was designed for Children’s programming. The Garden integrates the themes of “The Journey of Water”, with Early Literacy. Features include a rain water cistern wrapped in a mosaic of children’s drawings, play surfacing which mimics a pond and seating for story hour and performances. Water’s journey begins with the collection of rain from the roof into the cistern, through stream bed, to raingarden and native prairie/oak savanna culminating in a visual connection to a bio-fi ltration basin before connecting to the watershed.