Norsman Architects—Small Town Library, Big Time Style
Chicago based architecture firm Norsman Architects brought their unique modern styling to the small Northern Wisconsin town of St. Croix Falls with the design of the St. Croix Falls Library. The Library is just one of Norsman’s many modern commercial and residential projects in their portfolio of work. The Library greets visitors to St. Croix Falls small, but quaint riverside downtown business district. The Library is an adaptive/reuse of an unattractive vacated grocery store building, and other than the general footprint it bares no resemblance of its former self. The building not only features beautiful architecture but a collection of “green friendly” solutions from the actual buildings reuse to a super insulated roof, solar thermal rooftop array for primary radiant heat, local materials, reduced impermeable site, recycled building materials, Solatube skylights and sunlight monitoring lighting controls, low-flow plumbing fixtures, etc. I must applaud the civic leaders of this small town (around 2,000 residents) for not only being forward thinking with the construction of their newest public building, but for selecting and architectural firm and pushing the boundaries of the design.
