A public library built on the bones of a shuttered 1936 elementary school in Oak Grove has been named one of the best new library projects in North America. The Oak Lodge Library, a 15,300-square-foot branch that opened in Clackamas County last October, earned a spot in the American Library Association's 2026 Library Design Showcase, a national roundup that celebrates standout construction and restoration work.
The recognition, first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, places Oak Lodge among 15 library projects across the United States and Canada selected for the showcase's 38th annual edition. According to the American Library Association, the showcase covers projects completed between April 2025 and March 2026 and highlights buildings that embrace sustainability and historical preservation, themes that run through Oak Lodge's origin story. The showcase appears in the fall 2026 issue of American Libraries, which also praised the library's connection to its surrounding environment, per the same OregonLive report.
From Shuttered Schoolhouse to Civic Campus
The library sits at 3811 SE Concord Road on a site with education roots stretching back to 1890, when land was acquired from the pioneer Oatfield family. That history culminated in the 1936 construction of Concord Elementary School, built in part with a New Deal-era WPA grant, according to Restore Oregon. The school closed in 2014 amid district budget cuts, and community activists successfully fought off demolition of the historic building, the preservation group notes.
The North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District acquired the vacant campus in March 2018 through a property swap with the North Clackamas School District, trading Hood View Park for the Concord site, according to the North Clackamas School District. That inter-agency deal set the stage for turning the abandoned school grounds into what is now a civic campus anchored by the library, along with the Concord Community Center and Concord Park. The campus also received Restore Oregon's DeMuro Award for excellence in historic preservation, per OregonLive's reporting.
A Budget Overhaul Before Breaking Ground
Getting to opening day was not simple. Initial 2021 design drafts for a combined library and community center blew past budget by $7.2 million, with early cost estimates for the library alone peaking above $29 million, according to the Milwaukie Review. Clackamas County responded by detaching the library into its own standalone building to keep the project financially viable. The final facility, completed as a net-zero building, ultimately cost $22.8 million, per the OregonLive report.
More than 2,000 community members and county officials turned out for the grand opening celebration on October 18, 2025, marking the library, community center, and two-acre park, according to Opsis Architecture, the firm that led the project's design alongside Johnston Architects. That turnout capped a six-year community planning process, the firm's account of the opening notes.
Timber Roofs, Morse Code Sunscreens and a Seed Library
Inside, the design leans heavily on natural light and mass timber. The library uses a dowel-laminated timber roof system paired with leaf-shaped felt acoustic panels positioned above the children's section, according to Johnston Architects, whose design notes describe the timber structure as providing visual warmth while supporting the building's net-zero environmental goals. OregonLive's report adds that book stacks are concentrated at the center of the building, with floor-to-ceiling windows along much of the exterior and exterior metal sunscreens, patterned after Morse code, that filter sunlight and help protect books from ultraviolet damage.
Translucent window dots help prevent bird collisions, and the library offers views of an inclusive playground and the West Hills, per OregonLive. Jim Kalvelage, a founding partner of Opsis Architecture, said the library's placement between the community center and park was central to the design, and that the building was meant to provide a range of settings from conversational activity to quiet spaces, according to the same report.
The building's amenities extend well beyond stacks of books. Oak Lodge includes a teen area with café-style seating, movable lounge chairs and a recessed alcove; a children's reading nook with a mirrored, infinity-style ceiling and tiny lights; a history room; study rooms; a Friends of the Library resale bookshop; and a seed library offering free gardening seeds, per OregonLive's account. The county also lists a dedicated community meeting room with wireless screen-sharing technology that accommodates up to 40 people, according to Clackamas County, with local cardholders able to reserve it up to 90 days in advance.
A Busier Branch, and a Sister Library in Gladstone
Library manager Mitzi Olson has watched circulation tick up modestly since the move, and the branch drew significantly more visitors than the previous McLoughlin Boulevard location, per OregonLive's reporting. One recent Saturday brought roughly 800 people through the doors, the outlet reported, evidence the new building has become what county officials describe as a community gathering place, or third space.
Oak Lodge operates under a “one-library, two-branch” governance framework created after an October 2017 intergovernmental settlement between Clackamas County and the city of Gladstone, according to the Friends of Oak Lodge Public Library. That settlement resolved a contractual dispute and guaranteed dedicated library facilities for both communities. Gladstone's sister branch, built under the same dual-branch investment, earned its own Citation Award at the 2025 AIA Oregon Design Awards; the 6,216-square-foot Gladstone facility features a 52 kW rooftop solar array and perforated metal sunshades, according to AIA Oregon. Both branches operate as members of Libraries in Clackamas County, a 13-branch cooperative network established in 1977 through a countywide tax levy that provides shared collections and reciprocal borrowing across the county.
