A library is a free public space for the community to learn, and librarians are tasked with preserving information for everyone. With rapidly growing access to information and more platforms to create and share, people need librarians to process and preserve even more work. As access to this information becomes more of an expectation rather than an opportunity people will need spaces with the equipment and resources to tap into digital information.
Biblioteca Caminanza creates a place where the public can come to challenge the traditional way they learn, process and share information. Redefining the library to change institutional power dynamics into a partnership with the people, the future library will be a tool for upward mobility within the community. Biblioteca Caminanza’s goal is to amplify marginalized voices through storytelling, supporting each other as a community and exploring the diversity of the neighborhood. The library design focuses on areas of learning, building, and gathering to emphasize all methods of development. Generating a customized framework that uses access, equipment, technology and community to further cultivate diversity, education, safety and growth within the Cully neighborhood. Caminanza is a combination of the Spanish words camino (path) and esperanza (hope). The name exists because it encompasses the value of finding hope in the onward path to a better life.
Project Credits
Design Team: Lindsey Naganuma and Claudia Monroy-Benitez
Design Partner: Lindsey Naganuma
Professors: Clair Stone and Sophia Austrins
Multnomah County Public Libraries: May Dea (librarian)
Verde: Anna Gordon (community activist)