Sun City library

LOCATION:

Sun City, CA

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Located in Sun City, California, this was the site of a previous postal office in a very active shopping center. The site is surrounded by a parking lot and two busy streets, in an arid desert community. The goal of the landscape design was to tie the building into the community contextually and to enhance the area with a landscape that made a statement about what made Sun City special. McCullough Landscape Architecture, Inc. (MLA) was inspired by the surrounding hills and desert environment and instead of trying to create an artificial landscape that would inevitably require much water and maintenance, MLA proposed that this new landscape celebrate the rolling hills and desert. Rolling hills were recreated to mimic the surrounding hills but in the design, they also created a buffer to the surrounding busy roads. The plant material was carefully selected with the majority of which to be native and anything non-native was selected to enhance the natural environment. All native and non-native material was chosen based on how they would perform together. Rock, boulders, decomposed granite were all selected again based on colors seen in the surrounding environment. Decorative sculptures were chosen to help inspire creative young minds and boulders were placed to provided creative seating for library users. Together all these ideas and elements come together in a way that make the Sun City Library unique, inviting and inspirational for the users and the community as a whole.

PROJECT CHALLENGES: Sun City has an extreme climate with very hot summers and very cold winter, it was therefore a challenge to find plants that worked well in this climate. MLA took advantage of this challenge by using native material in strong masses that give the design a very human-made look that is contextual to the surrounding environment. Additionally, the project had an extremely aggressive budget of $3 million. The project was built under budget and on schedule.