Frisco, Texas, USA
Housed in a former rocket factory, Gensler’s Frisco Public Library is a 157,000-square-foot development that repurposes the industrial space into an open, light-filled environment that fosters innovation and learning.
Gensler’s adaptive reuse approach highlights exposed structural elements, large glass windows for natural lighting, and flexible interiors designed for collaboration.
At more than 140,000 square feet, this tilt-wall structure was once used to manufacture rockets.
Notably, Frisco Public Library has been recognized with the 2024 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, underscoring its innovative design and significance.
Now, the building is given new life as a library, serving as a new source for inspiration and learning that speaks to the youthful optimism and innovation of Frisco.
Additionally, the facility fulfills the city’s desire for a large, flexible building that facilitates dynamic, active learning and empowers its staff.
The library’s site context necessitated two entries: a ceremonial arrival to the north toward Frisco Square and a second west-facing entrance from where most guests will enter.
To address the security and service challenges of a library with two access points, the design team developed a parti evocative of the Dogtrot style homes customary to the Blackland Prairie ecoregion of the 19th and early 20th centuries, connecting two entries with an interior breezeway.
This concept also establishes two distinctive portions of the building designated as secured, housing the community event space with program pieces rentable to the public after library hours, and unsecured, housing the library proper space including the collections, study/conference rooms, reading rooms, and a puppet stage.
The design respects the site’s history on the Blackland Prairie and celebrates the ecological history of the site; today, less than .
The landscape design uses planting that is native to the site and provides bioswale water collection areas.
The design team has also created an interpretive nature walk for library patrons to learn about the ecological history of the site, while rewilding of certain portions of the exterior reintroduces native Blackland Prairie vegetation.
Many sustainability measures were designed to reduce solar impact and lower the building’s energy load.
Additional strategies include recovering an abandoned clerestory to introduce natural lighting, a primary skin system on the west elevation that uses louvres to control glare but allow indirect light, and strategic placement of windows with most larger spans facing north, with east and west-facing façades protected with passive and automated shading systems.
Project: Frisco Public Library
Architects: Gensler
Lead Architects: Justin Bashaw and Paul Manno
General Contractor: Byrne Construction Services
Client: The City of Frisco, Texas
Photographers: Connie Zhou
