From ‘big idea’ to beautiful reality: SMP’s communitydriven vision for a renewed Exeter Public Library

“Libraries are not just about books anymore; they are the social hubs of their communities,” says Jason LaCombe, president of SMP Architecture. The crucial importance of libraries to the communities they serve is a key reason LaCombe says SMP has focused on them over the years. It’s a personal passion for him. The firm has designed more than 20, most recently renovating the outdated Exeter Public Library, originally built in 1986 and heavily damaged by leaking roofs and systems, into a modern, inviting space for the community to gather.

The project began for SMP in 2014, right on the heels of their completion of the Durham Public Library. Exeter was looking at renovating its library, saw the Durham project, and asked SMP to visit.

The SMP team, led by LaCombe and project manager Anthony Mento, worked with Exeter’s building committee, including library staff, trustees, and townspeople, to understand exactly how deep the challenges with the aging building went, and presented an analysis of the building and mechanical systems.

And SMP began to develop what La- Combe calls the “big idea” — a vision for the space that would truly reflect its vital role in the community.

“Exeter came to us with a building nearing the end of its useful life,” LaCombe recalls. “The conversation turned into: how do we take a building that was designed in the ’80s, that ‘turned its back’ on the river, on the community, and re-envision it for what a library does today?” The “big idea” grew, LaCombe says, out of that challenge, and out of looking at all of downtown Exeter, its character and flow, and envisioning a pedestrian walking path along the river. “It blossomed out of that,” Lacombe says. From there they proposed opening the whole first floor, including recapturing a meeting room, into a children’s area with enhanced views of the river.

One of the large windows in the children’s room has been framed to be converted into a door that will someday open directly to the completed riverwalk.

The riverwalk, LaCombe says, was a core idea and in the beginning was part of the proposed project, but as the project was refined in scope, it was determined that the riverwalk would be taken on by the town in a future community project. The big idea, however, remained.

Light, views and windows

The design of both the children’s room downstairs and the newly added “cube” on the second floor include large windows that emphasize the views of the river and the community.

Mento notes Exeter’s library patrons include “a lot of young adults and children.

The children’s area was undersized, worn out, underlit.” In addition to expanding it to occupy the whole lower level and adding windows, “vibrant finishes, materials and color, created a really dynamic environment.”

These ideas carried upward into the “cube,” where dramatic 14-foot-tall windows provide views of the river and town, and has become favorite reading spots for Exeter residents. The cube appears to be an addition, LaCombe notes, but was actually part of a slope-roofed attic that was inaccessible prior to reconstruction.

“It’s a space you can really go and spend time,” LaCombe says. “It’s about the inherent quality of the space. It’s about scale.

People want ‘open.’ But there is such a thing that’s too open. And not too loud. We did a lot of thinking about acoustics. Acoustics in the space (accomplished by careful material choices) but also quiet mechanical systems.”

On the other hand, he jokes, libraries tend not to be about shushing people anymore. “It’s about interaction,” he says.

In addition, existing rooftop decks that were nearly unusable due to their leaky, element-exposed designs were reconfigured into dry, shady retreats where the library building and its views truly merged.

And that commitment to light and dynamics carried through to the exterior of the building, where, in addition to updated, modern brick, sections of aluminum cladding were designed to reflect the sky, river, trees, and “look lively — always changing and undulating,” Mento says.

Building begins, mysteries unearthed

The library hosted a soft re-opening in August of 2021, but Mento notes it was open to the public throughout almost all of the construction period.

That Construction began following a successful vote at the 2019 town meeting. SMP brought on a longtime, trusted partner as the builder: Bauen Corporation of Meredith, NH.

Mento had anticipated finding problems and planned for them as they began demolition and construction, given the leaking systems and other issues identified during the early phases of the project, and so despite issue after issue cropping up, they were able to stay on schedule and under budget.

Even so, there were surprises. “During demolition early in the project there was a new thing we found every week that was damaged, wasn’t built right, or wasn’t built according to the drawings,” LaCombe recalls. He credits the anticipatory skill of Anthony and of the Bauen team with keeping these from becoming major issues. “They are problem solvers,” he says of Bauen. “That’s why we love working with them.”

The long history of the land meant the team also constantly found the remains of prior eras.

“Because Exeter is such a historic community and the river is the primary fishing point, there were houses and residences all along the river, that were removed long ago,” Mento says. “We found relics of burned buildings and stone foundations.”

One of those relics — an old stone mill wheel — decorates the entrance to the reconstructed bridge that leads from the main entrance on the second floor to the road.

Another historic surprise was a penstock, originally built to direct water from the old dam right through the library site to the adjacent mills.

“We knew it was there,” LaCombe says, “but not exactly where.” It turned out the penstock, which is a long channel or pipe — this one concrete — ran directly under the library. And it is big. “At one time you could drive a jeep through it.”

A beacon for the community

Throughout the project, SMP focused on creating a space that, from the inside, showcased the beauty of the surrounding community, and from the outside, showcased the engagement and excitement that epitomize the library’s programming.

Another way they devised of drawing the community’s attention to the library was by illuminating an existing architectural feature.

There is a pyramid on top of the building — a “relic of postmodernism,” LaCombe says. “It’s such a defining feature of the original building we didn’t want to get rid of it.”

Instead, they opted to keep it and highlight it with colorchanging LEDs.

“It’s become quite a topic of conversation in town,” Mento says. “A lot of people didn’t realize it was there until we lit it. Now they love it.”

“It says that something fun, interesting and important is going on here,” LaCombe adds.

LaCombe’s enthusiasm for this project, and for library projects in general, is hard to miss. He imagines being retired someday and driving around visiting the different libraries SMP has worked on, seeing them thriving, in part as a result of the ideas SMP brought to the table.

“It’s important that people realize libraries aren’t dying just because Amazon exists,” he says. “They’re more vibrant now. Evolving.”