Costa Mesa Donald Dungan Library

City of Costa Mesa | Costa Mesa, CA

Size and Cost:

30,000 SF; $28 M

Timeline:

2014 - February 2020

LEED Certified:

Gold

TEAM:

PRINCIPALS:

Steve Johnson, Jim Favaro

PROJECT ARCHITECT:

Steve Johnson

ASSOCIATE PRINCIPALS:

Brian Davis

DESIGN ASSOCIATES:

Ryan Ekstrom

AWARDS:

AIA ORANGE COUNTY

Merit Award - Commercial Built Category, 2022

ENGINEERING NEWS RECORD - CALIFORNIA

Best Cultural/Worship Project, 2021

SCDF DESIGN AWARDS

Civic Project, 2021

Photographer:

Eric Laignel

Videographer:

Bread Truck Films

Publications:

Interior Design, March 2020


The new Costa Mesa branch of the County of Orange Public Library occupies a site in the heart of Lions Park. The two-story library accommodates approximately 22,500 SF including all the components of a complete, fully functioning branch of the county library system. These include two community meeting rooms, the marketplace/popular library, friends-of-the-library bookstore, young adult library, children's library, adult technology stations, study rooms, readers seats and collections. The library is part of a larger project that includes the redevelopment of Lion’s Park for a large outdoor community event space, gardens, concessions kiosk and recreational areas as well as renovation of the old library to become a new community meeting center. The architecture of the new library models flamboyant mid-20th century modernist architecture (such as John Wayne airport or the JFK TWA terminal) that was in vogue when cities like Costa Mesa came of age in combination with early California architecture (such as the original Spanish settlers’ adobe structures and the Junipero Serra missions) to create an entirely new architecture that is at once surprising and rooted in its place.