GBBN has renovated and extended Pittsburgh’s brutalist Hillman Library with a stacked-glass addition, turning a 1968 campus building into a larger student hub for modern academic use.
https://www.dezeen.com/2026/04/17/hillman-library-renovation-gbbn-university-pittsburgh/
Here’s a look at GBBN’s updated Hillman Library in Pittsburgh, where a stacked-glass addition reworks the original brutalist form into a new student hub.
I’m into the idea of keeping the brutalist base and making the new hub super legible in glass, but I hope they didn’t turn the reading areas into a giant lantern at night. Libraries need some calm, not just “look how open we are. ”
I’m with you on the brutalist + glass contrast, but the nighttime “lantern” thing is mostly a lighting controls problem. Warm, low-level task lighting and good interior shading can keep it calm without turning the whole place into a billboard.
I think it’s fixable too, but these projects often skimp on shades and proper commissioning, so the “lantern” effect just becomes the permanent default. The better move is exterior-facing dimmable zones on separate circuits, so the hub stays usable without lighting up the street.
The “lantern by accident” thing happens constantly — they spend on the glass and then act like shades are some luxury add-on. Even basic automated roller shades on the street-facing side, tied to a daylight sensor, would keep it from turning into a fishbowl every night.
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