R P
E F L E C T I O R T F O L
ARCHITECTURAL DE S I G N: ANY
PLACE
DARYL LAW
V E I O
PART 1
PART 2
Visual Thinking
Beyond the Tiber Piazza di San Cosimato
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BRIEF Any Place
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OBSERVATIONS Where Are All The People?
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MODEL 0 Allegorical Machine
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PRECEDENT Contextual Response
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MODEL I Man and Knowledge
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The Identity of the Library
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MODEL II The Constructive Idea
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MODEL III An Alternate World
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MODEL III PART II An Alternate World
CONTENTS
PART 3
Building the Library
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LIBRARY I Cascading Landscape
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LIBRARY II Visualizing Culture and Urbanity with Geometry
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LIBRARY III Rolling Back the Arc Arrival
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PRECEDENT Layers of Meaning
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LIBRARY IV Building with Light
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REFLECTION A Shared World
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Plans and Section
APPENDIX I Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Plans and Sections APPENDIX II Pecha Kucha Case Study 2 Barbican Centre Library / Chamberlin, Powell and Bon
PART
1
Visual Thinking
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BRIEF
Any Place
The Exercise Guidance 1 Explore the possibilities that exist for ‘reading’ the ‘written word’ 2 Explore the non-local conditions in relation to the library, I.e. the Internet/electronic media, through which the library relates to a broader context 3 Explore the concept of a modern library in relation to reading, watching and listening 4 Consider other uses for a contemporary place of learning
The questions posed by the exercise guidance are kind of rhetorical, or that as architecture students most of us intuitively know the ‘short’ answers to them.
7 1 – e-books. Or, if the question implies a broader perspective on how to preserve language, any other media formats? 2 - information/knowledge itself is a non-local condition of any library, even in printed form. Imagine how severely limited the library of Edinburgh would be if it only housed books about Edinburgh, or books by authors in Edinburgh. 3 – It needs to accommodate all of them. 4 – informal/formal meetings; research, children’s activities; borrowing other media formats; using the library’s computer; accessing information on jobs, health, etc; book promotion tours, story-telling sessions, live performances
8 Understanding the Library
The first form of writing was an accountancy tool, a method of keeping track of incoming and outgoing commodities as increasing demands of trade outstripped our mnemonic abilities. The Written Word paved the way for the mobility and ever-increasing speed of trade and communication over space and time.
and reliefs of the church), while having to its advantage the ability to organize, revise and transport those ideas with less spatial and temporal limitations. It is reasonable to say that the Internet is essentially doing the same for an increasingly mobile and connected world, but with exponentially growing speed and capacity.
The book lent greater portability to information, documentation and communication. By the time the moveable type and the printed press were invented, the book was the principal source of belief and authority in society. The printed book inherited architecture’s role as an archive (as how a medieval commoner would be educated on Christianity by the frescoes
Then why did we start keeping our books in intellectual storehouses that we call libraries? Didn’t books became so ubiquitous because of its ability to transport information, so that we didn’t have to be bound to a certain place to be able to learn? In reality, most books till now have to be bought to at least cover publi-
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cation costs, whereas things marketed to us as being ‘free’, eg social media and streaming services, come at the cost of placement of advertisements, which in turn thrives on invasive analysis of our consumption preferences. The architecture of the library becomes more symbolic than functional – to embody the ideal that information/knowledge is free and universally accessible. The library has enjoyed a return in popularity, because its founding principle sets itself against the increasingly commercialized environment within which it operates.
The exercise guidance positions the social and cultural functions of a library as its contemporary components. It is worth knowing that the oldest known library - the libraries of Alexandria - were already attached to museums, research institutes and forums. As described by Ray MacLeod, they were ‘part thinktanks, part graduate school, part observatory and part laboratory’. Perhaps this project will not require us to ‘reinvent’ the library; we could be more or less restoring the fundamental humanitarian qualities of our earliest libraries.
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MODEL
0
Allegorical Machine Unbuilt
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The fundamental value of information/ knowledge is its ability to be transported across space and time. I wanted the architecture of the library to allow the user to physically interact with information/knowledge (a la Minority Report?), to visualize the delivery of information/ knowledge in space-time. The circular deck is the gathering place of society, accommodating various other activities that require real-life interactions. The collective ‘weight’ of the society moves the mechanism to slide the shelves forward. This movement represents the ‘delivery’ of information/knowledge.
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The movement of information/knowledge overlays with the act of bringing people together in the pursuit of knowledge, even made possible by it. Society is the independent variable of the model, and the mechanism is the neutral variable – this is to attempt to change the view that books, the analogue technology, is at the mercy of the digital. The circular deck could evolve into a reading room, or an open ground floor for meetings, exhibitions and performances. These activities, meant for the gathering of people, shows the social role of the library to gather and preserve the collective memory and identity of a community.
MODEL
I
Man and Knowledge
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Developing the main armature of Model I
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1 Server
2 Deck
3 Armature
4 Frame
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The tutorial of week 1 injected a more nuanced/critical attitude towards imperfections in model-making, from the misaligned grain of wood to the bulbs of a cold solder joint. Paragraphs about materiality displayed alongside models made of mounting board and polystyrene, as I have been used to, seemed almost contrived. We’ve been taught to draw with scale, but frequently the drawing lacks a narrative of how construction. Louis Kahn’s architecture, for one, brought back the expression of materials and colour that was removed in the International Style. I am given the challeng of emulating drawings that embodies the process of crafting. Greater dynamism and composition is expected for the coming weeks. Ideas to take forward: mobility of information/knowledge Interaction between user and structure Communal space Role of technology More to test on: Internal space Internal lighting Materials
Look up on Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Production –concepts of authenticity John Berger, Ways of Seeing Naum Gabo Ben Nicholson Proto-Bauhaus Meeting with Victoria, MA tutor
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18 “Sculpture personifies and inspires the ideas of all great epochs. It manifests the spiritual rhythm and directs it. The Constructive idea has given back to sculpture its old forces and faculties, the most powerful of which is its capacity to act architectonically. This capacity was what enabled sculpture to keep pace with architecture and to guide it. In the new architecture of today we again see an evidence of this influence. This proves that the constructive sculpture has started a sound growth, because architecture is the queen of all the arts, architecture is the axis and the embodiment of human culture.�
N. Gabo, Sculpture: Carving and Construction in Space, in Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art (New York, 1971)
MODEL
II
The Constructive Idea
19 The mechanical/constructive theme of Model I calls to mind the work of Naum Gabo in the mid-1920s. Gabo’s affinity to machinery was probably related to the growth of heavy industries, electrification and international industrial linkage in post-WWI economy. This affinity is reflected in the formal language of his sculptures, the range of materials employed, and the deliberate display of constructional components.
Gabo’s artistic assimilation of the imagery of and materials of contemporary technology was devised to be integrated into the modern urban environment.
Take as an example, Construction in Space with Balance on Two Points. Gabo creates an illusionistic absence of gravity and support. Moving around the sculpture, the viewer is presented with a constantly shifting interplay of solid and void, stasis and movement, opacity and transparency.
Alive, but impersonal
Aside from possessing architectonic resonance, the research models of this project should be both functional and symbolic, as ideas will be adapted and reinterpreted in the conception of the eventual library.
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Model II
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Model II continues to represent the main idea, the mobility of information/knowledge. More precisely, it shows in built form the process of sourcing, storing and lending knowledge. The path of travel of data mirrors and intersects with the path of the people, starting with the posterior arms (for data) and anterior landing (for people.
User Information Model II
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23 Model I was based on an extroverted composition to accommodate people; Model II takes into consideration internal space. Closed walls accentuate the intimacy of the interior reading space, while natural light comes through the clerestory. The construction of the model prominently features metal. Tabs and slots on the structural frame holds together wood, acrylic and paper.
The translucent spine admits more light, and cast a calm glow onto the desk and benches. The model reiterates the relationship between people and information/knowledge. There is a clear, top-down path of where data is stored and where it is taken to: a paternoster links the shelves to the reading desk.
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The machine-aid construction of Model II is counterbalanced by the hand-sculpted glass base. The photos show the process of sculpting the glass.
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More to test on External space Storage of different media formats Movement of people to/from a different space Gradient of intimacy Structuring interactions and vistas
The arms ripple the surface, suggesting an inertial pull on the physical form of data.
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1 Extractors
2 Server
3 Reading space
4 Entrance
5 Paternoster
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28 Ideas to take forward: mobility of information/knowledge Interaction between user and structure Communal space Role of technology More to test on: Internal space Internal lighting Materials
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Sensing time.
A Temporal Experience Our instinct for motion and pattern is almost synonymous to our instinct for the element of time. Our innate response to these stimuli helps us to comprehend change. An open book in the hand shifts its centre of gravity as one reads it through; a change in mass and volume in the grip of each hand lets the reader physically gauge in real time how much information has been absorbed. While the modern library is a confluence of media, people and ideas, it retains its earliest character as a place for meditation and contemplation: contemplation being a train of thought, and meditation a training of the mind to rest in a particular focus.
31 In other words, we desire to be in the space of a library because it is a temporal experience. There is a discernible ‘delay’ in the activities in a library: the kinetic rhythm of turning the pages; understanding a chapterof a book; starting and ending a discussion; settling into the alternate reality of a film; even the changing light of the day...this ‘delay’ measures the change in our mental state as we commit new information to memory. Our activities in the library augment our physical and temporal awareness in the process of learning. Could the architecture of the library do the same?
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34 The modern library, as Ken Worpole puts it, is a place where people come to ‘solve their intellectual problems on their own’, but want the space, comfort and the associational life offered by the company of other users. Likewise, Model III explores the notion of “being alone together”. The composition of Model III was initially based on Louis Kahn’s binary organization in the Exeter University Library: where the book is, and where the book is taken to. The circulation pattern of Exeter Library reflected its role of supporting the students in pursuing their personal endeavours.
MODEL
III
An Alternate World
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User Information
Exeter Library
Model III
Diagammatic examples of the paternoster system
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Circulation : Book to User Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin / Hans Scharoun The books are stored on racks in the four storeys of the tower or in the basement. Staff in the bookstores receive requests by pneumatic tube, select the books, put them into carrying trays and send them off on paternosters to the librarian who ordered them and will issue them to the appropriate readers. This systems is made possible by a vertical alignment of book-issuing stations around the book lifts at various levels. This, along with the structural columns for the tower, generates a notional spine for the tall part of the library.
Librarian receiving a search request via one of the pneumatic tubes
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Study model showing the alignment of the storage tower to the public part of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
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Paper, used to make both the units and the server, maerges the physical properties of information and architecture.
A ‘server’ was planned at the centre of the ring. Vertical ‘server blades’ would move as if effected by inertia and gravity as the user accesses information. There were doubts that the composition of Model III detracted from the language of the previous models, as it made the user move to acces information. Antennas replaced the server to maintain the theme of informationg moving to the user. Users then slide out on the ring track on a unit, of which can be solitary or grouped. Desk and seats fold down, origami-like. The modular units can be combined to accommodate groups, but also functions on their own to accommodate one user’s need for privacy and contemplation. The model respects the user as an individual, but also recognizes he/she as a member of his/her society.
Server blades that express effect of inertia and gravity
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1 Desk
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3 Stabilizer
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41 You’ve created a world for each of the models, or they perhaps even exist in the same world. Whether you’ve done it consciously or not, each model has generated its own context.
Ideas to take forward Maintaining an internal argument – building an alternate reality Binary relationship of user and information
This site, traffic sense
More to test on Communal space and personal space Modeling - overcome limitations of the desk
is greater than the notion of or acts like drawing arrows over routes, that pay lip service to of place. This must not be lost.
I initially planned to anchor the model to the edge of the desk. This would’ve countered the effect created by the previous models, bounding it to real space. It was a revelation that my subsequent work will need to be free of the physical restraints of my workspace.
1 Desk
2 Ring track
3 Stabilizer
4 Antenna/Armature
5 Server
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42 The modification to model III aims to overcome the limitations of “the desk�. The anchor turns into a central column to hold the original part at eye level. The metal rod significantly changes the scale of the original model. The change in scale anticipates the volume of the library contents that needs to be considered later on. The exaggerated distance of the retrieval of information/data, accentuates the temporal experience of the library.
MODEL
III
An Alternate World PART II
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a Paper blades of Part I’s server turns into wooden ones to increase the volume of the model’s middle section. They function as containers of data chips. They project and expand to reveal the data chips, which are to be fetched by the antenna reaching down from the seats. The inertial movement of paper is recreated here. The composition is condensed relative to the top ring, but altogether simulate weightlessness.
‘The place of the book in the library’ is not only in comparison to digital media and additional functions, but also in comparison to the library itself. Shelves/servers/workspace should be congruous with the architecture of the library, rather than being nicely positioned furniture. Structure generates space, instead of being a consequence of space made available.
Mirrors at the top and bottom simulate an infinite array.
Developing the proportions of the new body
Each tier is supported by acrylic fins to simulate weightlessness.
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PART
2
Beyond the Tiber Piazza di San Cosimato
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“When you look at one of the vast number of books on architecture that are being published nowadays and you see all those glossy photographs, taken without exception in perfect weather conditions, you can’t help wondering what goes on in the architects’ minds, how they see the world; sometimes I think they practice a different profession from mine! For what can architecture be other than concerning oneself with situations in daily life as lived by all people; it’s rather like clothing, which must after all not only suit you well, but also fit properly. And if it is the fashion nowadays to concern oneself with outward appearances, however cleverly vested with references to higher things, then architecture is degraded to sculpture of an inferior sort.”
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Herman Hertzberger, 1991
Long-ass queue 1
Swiss Re Building, 1998
Where are all the people? The negative space drawings, shown over the next few pages, left a completely different effect on the project than its propounded benefits. These pockets of space tell the visceral intimacy between human beings, not just lovers but even strangers. They echoed the unease I have always felt looking at architectural imagery that feature little to no people. It is as if we are taught to see architecture as an autonomous world of order, beauty and perfection; as if we are getting prepped up for the marketing-driven, detached character of our architectural industry.
Barcelona Bullring
49 Lately I find myself drawn towards the architectural imagery of Richard Rogers. The illustrations of his projects may be just lines and minimal blocks of colour, yet they hold such spatial depth and imagination or observation - of usage and life. The tectonics of his projects are in turn expressed through modelling. This perspective may be incompatible with my current architectural education. Or could it not be? If it comes to seeing architecture as untouchable sculpture and denying its social nature - the core of its existence - then perhaps I can learn to challenge it through this project.
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Long-ass queue 2
Masha and a local lady
Mercato di San Cosimato The market opened since the beginning of 1900, having been mentioned as a ‘covered market’ in a town council resolution in 1913. Many of the vendors actually descend from the first-generation vendors (now third). The vendors devote their stands to the local culinary tradition, selling goods from all over Italy with a special consideration for the region’s produce. Besides fruits, vegetables, cheese, the market also sells regional meat specialties, such as entrails and beef tail, and fish arrives fresh every morning from the nearest coast. The market sees constant activity despite the decreasing population of Trastevere.
Patrons of the market
Ricercatezze alimentari - dried food seller
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Couple on steps of colonnade
53 An Urban Lung The piazza is an organic synthesizer; a triangular organ; an urban lung. The sounds of the piazza swells in volume and increases in complexity as people convene and pass by in the morning hours, like an organ that shifts colour or pitch with more stops pulled. There is something very human about it because you can only make sound with air, and its need to inhale, or exhale, to produce every single note. One feels human presence in every sound: the chatter, the laughter,
The intimacy of the community of the piazza should not be erased or diminished in the project
the ruffling of paper bags, the crank of the wheels of a bicycle or pram, the low rumble of cars, the contact between the foot and a ball... that I felt important to preserve in the project. Even after the market is closed, people pass through the piazza in intervals, like tides of waves, or pulses of a bloodstream. It is not just about the space we’re looking at, but also the people in that space. There is an intimacy as well as a greater scale, sometimes within just a shift of a bar.
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Long-ass queue 3
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The piazza is still a vibrant place without the market operating
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Ann and Kathy
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Movement is a prevalent theme of the piazza, giving it a human (kinetic) presence.
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Strangers in the colonnade
Visitors exchanging condolences in front of the playground
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Joy and Sorrow Hundreds of people gathered at the southern tip of the piazza to attend the memorial of Massimo Fagioli, a world-renowned psychiatrist, screenwriter and film director. Sadness, sorrow, grief, catharsis; these emotions melded with the shrill laughter of the children in the playground and the chatters of the market, even seemingly comforted and softened by them. Again we see this intimacy even at this collective scale. The piazza is, in this respect, a social condenser.
Massimo Fagioli 19 May 1931 - 13 Feb 2017
The playground on the piazza
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Father and son
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Architecture is contextual when it is functional; Ottone Pignatio’s scheme for the piazza featured a concourse that announced the presence of the eponymous church, whilst creating a place for contemplation away from the bustle of the market.
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Stranger, father, daughter. The size of the negative space indicates the relationship between the people that make them.
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People are the ultimate element to bring architecture to life.
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Mother and son, 1 and 2.
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People are the ultimate element to bring architecture to life.
Activities of Liberia Ottimomasimo, on the road and in their studio
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The take-as-you-donate bookshelf is no longer on the piazza
Art and Literature of the Community There was a little bookcase on the fence of the playground where the locals can take a book by leaving another. This led to the discovery of the only mobile library of Italy, Ottimomasimo Libreria per Ragazzi, founded on the piazza in 2006. It now has a studio on Via Luciano Manara, just behind (northeast of) the piazza. Aside from being invited to schools to read to children, its studio collects used books and holds painting/illustration workshops. It is, by all means, a social library, a reservoir of new ideas and materials to help teachers promote reading in school.
A used books seller operating in one of the market kiosks
One beautiful artwork hidden behind the market kiosks
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The graffiti on the front and back of the market kiosks were a response to the vandalism subjected to them several years ago.
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Trastvere Film Festival The festival, turning four years old, is 60 nights of free films from June 1st to August 1st. Each open-air screening will begin at 9:15pm and each day of the week will display a different theme and genre: from Disney and Pixar, Italian comedy, music and cinema, contemporary Italian documentaries, as well as films from three acclaimed directors: Xavier Dolan, Ernst Wilhelm Wenders and Martin Scorsese. The allure of the event is palpable just by sitting on the piazza in the late hours of the market.
The intimacy of the community, even more condensed in the event.
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The book faces several fundamental physical limitations that has not been completely overcome for the past few millennia: accessible to only one readers at a time (several readers if read as a group or with multiple copies); eventual termination of publication to give way to newer editions or if simply no longer profitable; portability due to size, weight, or amount; and vulnerability to damage and degradation. We have stepped into the ‘digital age’ knowledge should, and will, eventually be free of physical limitations. The routines and the happenstance interactions of the community (of the piazza) could constitute one half of the project’s basic concept – the relationship between man and knowledge. The act of sharing and collaborating is present in almost all the daily/organized events of the community. This underlies the raison d’etre of any library – the act of sharing, preservation and dissemination, and the pursuit of individual endeavours in the support of one’s community.
The Identity of the Library
The library boils down to two elements: people, and their pursuit of knowledge.
Bibliotheca Marucelliana, Florence The library owed its existence to Abbot Francesco Marucelli, who donated his personal library with the condition that every person in society could access it. The two-storey reading room, in present time, still lends its centuries-old collection for advanced research, but its oldest collection was sealed away due to extreme fragility. Moreover, patrons of the library come in for its space more than for its content. Bibliotheca Marucelliana’s aspiration to equality and universality resonates with the research process of the library. The library for the piazza’s
What if the contents of these books can be accessed within a matter of seconds?
71 community will be one that digitizes printed literature. Any number of the members of the community will be able to access the same content at once, and share content to any number of other members. When I enter a library, my mental and visual focus is usually reduced to the one aisle that will satisfy my need. The library for Piazza di San Cosimato will endow its members a sense of ownership of its complete body of knowledge. Their pursuit of knowledge shall embody the spirit of the life of their community.
Site model showing the State Library, right; the New National Gallery, bottom left; the Philharmonie, top left, and the Matthai Kirche, middle left.
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Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin / Hans Scharoun The libary has as its closest neighbours the Philharmonie and Mies’ New National Gallery. Scharoun made the form of the library mediate between the two.
In contrast, Scharoun echoed his own Philharmonie with the various shifts in angle which delimit difrent zones in the plan, and the Expressionist massing and articulation of elements.
The central part of the main reading room was conceived as a large square box with a glazed front and flat roof, echoing Mies’ Gallery even in size. The reading room grows out of the lower part of the building in the same way Mies’ Gallery grows out of its podium, of which is echoed at the roof terraces of the main living room and the Ibero-American Institute.
Support spaces, store rooms and closed stacks were supposed to act as acoustic barriers against the proposed expressway at the back of the library (It was built in front instead). The reading rooms and other annexes cascade to the open ground, echoing square in front of the Mattahi Kirche.
PRECEDENT
Contextual Response TOP Mies’ Classicist New National Gallery BOTTOM Scharoun’s Expressionist Philharmonie
Airborne structures
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Movement up the left stair from the main entrance;
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to the mezzanine landing;
Circulation: People A pair of monumental stairs links the two main floors. Each stair system is placed on a circulation axis: the left on that of the main entrance, the right on that of that of the lecture hall and entrance. The two stair systems splay outwards from one another in plan, each set almost perpendicular to the respective side wing of the reading room. The whole figure seems to expand towards the reading room and the Kulturforum beyond, while it contracts into the landing. The path of the visitor is one of the dominant thewmes in the conception of the library, hence the public part of the library is planned as a sequence of events. At the main entrance, the left stair invites the visitor to come forth; the gesture is emphasized by
to more stairs leading to study spaces above the main reading room.
the striplights concealed beneath the handrails. Both stairs lead up to a landing on the mezzanine. Once ascending the stair, two equally inviting vistas open up: one back toward the reading room above, the other to the right to the landing, with its galleries that only reveal themselves as the visitor walks into the space. Here the two halves of the circulation can cross over, or visitors can turn and carry up on the next flights of the same stair. With a 180-degree turn. the visitor arrives at the reading room, again to be invited by more steps to move forward. Not until reaching one’s desk in the reading room does one feel that one has arrived, where the pace slackens and a more tranquil atmosphere takes over.
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Cascading landscapes ending at a lobby, a forum, a piazza.
PART
3
Building the Library
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The arbritary boundary
78 I made the playground the arbitrary boundary for the library to preserve ground space for the century-old market and the film festival. The architecture of the library should sustain and enhance the activities of the piazza, hence the tiered seating before the library for patrons of the market to sit and mingle. This also meant reorienting the axis of the film festival since the steps would naturally be used by the audience, whilst the front of the library could house a projector.
L I B RA RY
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Cascading Landscape Maintaining the theme: man and knowledge
Orienting the library
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Planning the library
Section 1:400
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Preserving the preexisting dwelling zone right in front of the playground
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Dwelling zones
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Main path patterns
Structuring the Library Base Volume 1 I wanted to continue the theme of airborne structures from the research models. The main body of the library was to rest on a base that carefully considers the movement and activities on the piazza, and the architecture surrounding it. 2 The bench facing the entrance of the church is developed into steps leading up to the lobby, and doubles as a space for reading looking on to the church courtyard. 3 The lobby was to have a communal podium/table, taking reference from Carlo Scarpa’s Neglizio Olivetti, for social functions organized by the neighbourhood.
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3
Van dock unloading books onto the shelves to be digitized
84 1 The development of the main body however was problematic. The initial proposal of letting a vehicle drive through the core of the building to unload books could not be applied as the tip of the piazza was not long enough for a vehicular ramp, nor was its level change deep enough to let even a van pass through.
3 Nonetheless, increasing the complexity of the front of the library came at the cost of the remaining space available for the main body. The library as a whole, including the digitizing zone, was not fully developed in time for the weekly tutorial.
2 As an alternative, a loading bay anchors onto the steps, with a pivoting cover that links to the mechanistic language of the research models. The corollary to this was the elevated playground that opens at the base to dock the mobile library that would host sessions for children.
A dock for Ottimomassimo’s Mobile Library, sheltered by the playground above.
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Sketches to figure out the upper volume of the library
86 In my haste to catch up after being away for a week, the crossover of idea was rushed. I panicked in attempt to give form to the library without a central idea. An amalgamation of minor concepts resulted in a model that was much weaker in form, geometry and abstraction compared to the research models. The pizza slice has drowned out your exercise in abstraction. Although I have sought to incorporate the film festival, I have overlooked the practicality of its orientation. The transverse placement respected the livelihood of the generations-old market vendors; realize that the projector and screen would have stayed set up in the day even though the films are played only in the evening. `
Architecture is contextual when it is practical. Look no further than the Theatre of Marcellus on Site 2, one building that anticipated the Colosseum. The ampitheatre stems from ancient Greece as the symbolic form of democracy, built from no more than the simplest of geometry ([planned by Julius Caesar notwithstanding). It came to be one of the most pervasive urban architectural forms of ancient Rome. The theatre is (was) contextual; it is (was) a social condenser. The advantage the research models had over a full-fledged project is that they amplified an idea in a condensed form. I will need to confront and move away from the weaker method done in Week 8, and reconstruct the geometry of the library in the same matrix aa that of the research models.
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Theatre of Marcellus
Reorienting the library
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Geometry in Two Dimensions The challenge this week was to express the identity of the library and the identity of the piazza in the simplest of geometry. Variant I was informed by the cascading landscape of Scharoun’s Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – his rejection of the circle (or ring) because it implied surveillance and authority. But I felt a sense of subjectivity in his reasoning. Model I has already conversely shown the circle as a symbol of democracy, of the assembly of equals. By extension, the ampitheatre - essentially a sector of a circle - carries the same symbolism and functionality.
L I B RA RY
II
Visualizing Culture and Urbanity with Geometry
The circle would embody the democratic ideal of the library. The base of Variant I was essentially an orthogonal projection of the ampitheatre, or a diagonal in perpendicular view. Stripped of its other parts, the diagonal becomes a clearer form that is both functional and symbolic. The diagonal and the circle could create a new localized event on the piazza – a place-in-a-place, a social condenser.
Superimposing on Library I
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Geometry in Three Dimensions Model III PII is essentially multiple planes of circles – a cylinder. It is non-directional. It embodies the idea of movement, the cycle of time, and inclusion. A fitting form for a library built to make knowledge universally accessible, in a place imbued with ritual and rhythmic movement. The van dock of Variant I seemed excessive next to the readily paved parking zone. A conveyor belt could pass beneath the street to send books into the library, circular perhaps to echo the cylinder, like in Model III.
The diagonal, now extruded to a rake, is tested on Model III. A linear hierarchy becomes apparent: of man atop, in control of the way knowledge is produced, reproduced, preserved, and shared. No lend queues, no missing copies, no out-of-prints. The lower volume of the library is now subterranean to preserve this hierarchy and the function of the rake requiring it to be at street level. The rake doubles into a ring encircling the planes of books. This creates another concentric hierarchy: users of the library take on a spectatorial position as books are imported and digitized. A raked ring gives equal sightlines to the further end of the library.
A new linear hierarchy
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User Information
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Development in section 1:200
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A possible support structure for the rake
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Unfurling the Ring
Planning
I manipulated the diagonal ring a step further. The rake opposed the non-directional property of the cylinder when viewing the two as one entity. An arc (tiered) seemed to be a suitable interface between the two. The ‘spandrel’ between the arc and the cylinder makes space for gathering.
L0 Tiered seating L-1 Accession; Books; Tiered mixed use space; Pods L-2 Books; Exhibition/performance space L-3 Digitizing
The arc calls to mind Model II. It turns into a series of rooms tethered onto the arc; smaller atmospheres for quiet reading, conferences, or sharing content.
Scale down
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Section of Libary II 1:400
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The ‘spandrel’ between the arc and the cylinder makes space for gathering.
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Aerial view of the library, showing the pyramidal and sawtooth rooflights.
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Downlights around the nodes of the grid of the diffusers.
Light / Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Lighting, both natural and artificial, is organized to articulate the identity of each space. The ceiling of the main reading room has a grid of diffusers, and above them a sawtooth northlight roof to provide omnidirectional light. The grid is punctuated by pyramidal glass rooflights to create contrasting wells of brightness. One lightwell penetrates through the main reading room floor to the exhibition space below, thus casting a glow onto the mainly artificially lit ground floor. To prevent too much midsummer sunlight, the pyramids would have been covered with movable louvres to reduce the light when necessary.
Pendant lights repeat the rhythm of the circular diffusers. Lit railings invite the user to scale the stairs.
Multiple sources of light: direct daylight from the north glazing; diffused daylight from the diffusers; spotlight from above the shelves.
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The best space is...the space given to nothing.
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So why not make use of it?
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Breaking free of the geometry of the piazza
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Library retains the constructive theme of the research models;
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whilst incorporating the architecture of the piazza.
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a The composition seemed balanced in sketch, but when drawn more accurately created unequal sightlines to the cylinder. The visual strength it held as an abstracted model also faced conflict when considering that it would face one foreboding plane of retaining wall. However partial I am to the proportions of Library II, the resulting scale came off as excessive for the community of the piazza. Rolling the arc back to a ring was a possible remedy.
L I B RA RY
III
User Information
Rolling Back the Arc Preserving the geometry and concentric hierarchy
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Plan of Library II
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Modeling with Paper There was something more to paper than just a quick and easy material to build with. It was an antithesis to the physical properties of the research models. Metal, wood and glass gave concrete form to abstract thought; paper is in reverse the abstraction of reality. It is the surface of geometry, the geometry that represents the social nature of the piazza. Card, just a little thicker than paper, was suitable for developing the structure of the library. Inverted buttresses, of sorts, converge beneath the building, like the way a ribcage is joint to a spine.
Glass elevator shaft at the side of the library
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Vans unloading fresh supplies for the market
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Sectional model of Barcelona Bullring
Via Roma Libera The parking zone across the street could be the docking zone to feed the books to the libray via a subterranean conveyor. This would entail part of the street to have a different structure for an underpass. Barcelona Bulllring / Richard Rogers Richard Roger’s architecture again shows a strong structural theme: a suitabel precedent for the language of the models thus far.
Conveyor beneath Via Roma Libera
Development of the structure of the underpass
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Section of Library III
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Increasing detail : digitizing scanners at L-3, connected to the elevator shaft.
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Angled platforms direct sightlines back to the market.
Planning L0 Tiered seating + platforms; Entrance/ Elevator shaft L-1 Accession; Books; Tiers; Pods L-2 Books; Exhibition/flexible reading space; Cafe L-3 Digitizing
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Compromised Geometry The attempt to maintain equal sightlines from the pods and tiers conflicted with another attempt to maintain an asymmetrical plan. As an experiment, the tiers sprang from offset centres to wrap around the cylinder. This however severely breaks up the peripheral retaining wall meant to be a cylinder encasing the library. This plan is modified later on.
Sightlines
Off-centre circles
Compromising the geometry of the library
Wide-angle view
116 The island on the piazza was incongruous with the library’s rake. The ramped concourse would diminish the passerby’s engagement with the community convening on the piazza. I moved the island to the piazza’s eastern edge to merge both existing paths. It now serves to structure the vista from the tip of the piazza. As the pedestrians move forward, trees on the island move out of sight – like window curtains - to reveal the library, the market, and the greater space of the piazza.
Arrival Reveal of the piazza
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Model focusing on the articulation on street level
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Orbitting the library
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Couch in a Room The cornices of the apartments surrounding the piazza do more than shed rain off the walls: they suggest an upper limit, thus giving scale to the piazza, making it more room-like, therefore condensing its character and identity. Pedestrians sweep around the library as they are funneled through the space between the rake and the island – like moving around a couch in a room. Every change in angle with every step guides them to engage with whole volume of the piazza. It is as if the library generates its own gravitational field, guiding the passersby to orbit around it.
Cornices lend scale to the piazza
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A couch in a room
Wall of the stairwell doubles as signage
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Going Under The circulation shaft moves from the south to the north to increase daylight entering the subterranean volume. The focus is on the elevator: The books come into view, tier by tier, as the visitor descends. After exploring several variations, I kept the stairwell to the back to the elevator to indicate it as a secondary mode of entrance.Â
Stairs behind lift
Dual-lift entry
Side by side
Circular panoramic lift
Reveal of books as the lift descends
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Arrival from northwestern tip of the piazza
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The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) / Marcel Duchamp To understand the Large Glass, one must imagine its components in motion. The sculpture begins with the Bride (1), who flirts by stripping for the nine Bachelors (5). Each Bachelor wants to win her affection, but has a hard time coomunicating with her because they exist in a different realm. The Bachelors generate an illuminating gas (representing their desire for the Bride) that causes a waterfall to turn the mill (6). This causes the rectangular glider (7) to moves the scissors (8), which makes the chocolate grinder churn (9). The gas then flows into the sieves (10), transforms into liquid, and flows into the lower right corner. The liquid is propelled through the Oculist Witnesses (11), and shoots into the Bride’s realm. If one Bache-
PRECEDENT
Layers of Meaning
lor lands his shot within one of the three Nets (2), he will win the Bride and they will be able to consummate their love physically. Unfortunately, none of those shots even hit its target (3), thus the Bachelors’ desire for the Bride remains unfulfilled. Duchamps imagination may be strongly esoteric, but one thing is noteworthy - when the glass of the Large Glass was damaged, Duchamp layered the sculpture with new ideas of electromagnetism and telegraphy. The cracks represent electromagnetic waves (4) as the Bride sends erotic signals to the Bachelors’ realm. However, the Bachelors are less advanced, and they could only respond with rudimentary means in the form of their failed shots.
Bride’s realm
1 Bride
2 Nets
3 Failed shots
4 Electromagnetic waves
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Bachelors’ realm 5 Bachelors 6 Mill 10 Sieves 11 Oculist Witnesses
7 Glider
8 Scissors
9 Chocolate grinder
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So Model II broke TWICE, but... The research models were very much allegorical in the way Duchamp explained the Large Glass, in the sense that they create meaning through implied motion.
Entrance Antenna
If anything, our exploration of architectonics in the previous semester even made most (if not all) of us sufficiently adept in ascribing external meaning and/or function to the physical and spatial properties of our research models. So why not give Model II another try? New annotations are in bold.
Antenna
Glass intact now representing organized knowledge and established theories
Cracked glass representing natural phenomena yet to be empirically tested and understood
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Added elements
Cracks, Superglued skin, spots of blood.
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Previous spread View from the cafe
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The floor-to-floor height of Level -1 is increased to 8m. This gives the library a more slender profile, increases the volume of light entering the library, and lengthens the descent from the piazza - calculated for a more dramatic entrance.
L I B RA RY
IV
Building with Light
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131 The curtain walls of the pods now extend through the floor of Level –1 to increase diffused lighting at the peripheral wall of Level –2. The rifts on either side of the gangway achieve the same effect.
Channeling light through the pod
Abstraction of the floor pane at the entrance of Chiesa di San Cosimato
North-facing media pods are shielded from glare, but maintain sightlines to the core of the library.
Radial Rifts The Word, South Shields / Faulkner+Brown Architects I saw a remedy to the fragmented geometry of Variant IV. Instead of accumulating elements onto the circle, I should inscribe them. The tiers and the pods are now largely within the periphery of the retaining wall drum. The pods are now pulled back to different distances from the central cylinder. The plan now comes closer to the asymmetry of the section. Radial rifts helped subdivide Level –2 into: a space for socializing and exhibitions receiving south daylight; digital media pods at the south, away from glare; and the Genius-bar-like reformatting zone.
Radial rifts in the floor plan of The Word
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133 The Lens in The Word gave a clue to how the circulation shaft can be further articulated. Visitors ‘land’ on the library from a gangway, as if they are disembarking from a shuttle ship ‘docked’ onto the library. The rifts separating the gangway from t he main floor of the library emphasizes the auxiliary function of the circulation shaft.
The Lens: cantilevered belvederes
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Abstraction of the floor pane at the entrance of Chiesa di San Cosimato
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The width and angle of the studio’s window bay surprisingly matches the width and angle of the southfacing apartment facade behind the piazza.
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This meant that sunlight entering the studio will be very similar to its natural orientation in rome in daytime. The orientation of the model would very much be that of its “actual� condition on the piazza.
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Arrival Information stands at the end of the entrance gangway
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Reinstating Its Identity The digitizing zone is supposedly the core of the library’s identity. Yet for a library built to ‘serve the community’, it is architecturally the most exclusive and inaccessible. Variant IV raises the tower of books to allow users to observe the digitizing process. The sunken reformatting zone forms a clearer connection between the the digitizing zone and the rest of the library.
Reconnecting with the profile of Model II
Digitizing scanners make information/data/knowledge truly universally accessible.
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Revolving armatures fetch books to the digiziting scanners.
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The reformatting zone, aside from post-processing the digitized books, also receives printed or written media from the community – diaries, journals, photographs that they wish to be free from physical degradation. Editors also help publish written works by members of the community.
Resident of the piazza contributing written work to the library
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Editors working at the reformatting zone
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The library grows from its own geometry.
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146 “Familiarity influences the experience of place, so that someone first encountering a place where locals feel at home might initially be uneasy there. But place, like aliveness, is something we recognise intuitively rather than intellectually, and both might even be recognised by the feeling stirred in us when we open up to engage empathically and experience rather than merely detachedly observe or rationally contemplate.
“...all these forms of autistically aloof modern buildings described above stand free from each other with undefined space whooshing around them. And the outdoor space closer to the buildings is merely residual ...a purposeless and unloved leftover pathetically camouflaged with landscaping or paved and labelled patio or piazza. As must be obvious, Parametricism takes all these pathological aspects of modern architecture to an extreme, often stirring rather than stabilising and defining open space and devoid of forms of anthropomorphic resonances or physiognomic gestalt. This is why it is merely a sunset effect, saying goodbye to modernity, yet irrelevant to the future − no matter how dynamically futuristic the forms.
Relating to the intimacy of the community of the piazza
Relating to the functional and symbolic geometry of the library
147 “..place rarely, if ever, has to be created from scratch. Instead it starts as a response to place, to what is local and pre-existing... Design tends to cement relationships with elements in the surroundings, often resulting in novel relationships between these, while also bringing into visible focus the myriad forces − from climatic to cultural, economic to land use − that shape or act on the site and location....This is a very different dynamic to the sort of passively parasitic contextualism that merely tries to fit in or, as do so many minimalist buildings, depends entirely for its effects upon its contrasts with its setting.
“For modern architects, elevations were the products of the needs and expression of the functions behind them and/or the logic of construction with repetitive components. Alignments and proportions could be adjusted, but otherwise, to go beyond this was denigrated as facadism. Yet one of the facade’s primary purposes, one just as important as reflecting what lies behind it, should be the role it plays in articulating and animating the space before it.”
Excerpts from Places and Aliveness: Pattern, Play and the Planet, by Peter Buchanan
Relating to the planning of the library
Relating to the abstraction of the piazza
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Place and Aliveness How very often we focus on only architecture in virtual environments, that we reduce its people - who architecture is made for - to translucent silhouettes, and its context - where architecture is built on to opaque blocks of wood, card and lines. The making of architecture is fundamentally important, nonetheless, but its potential does not end there. Unless it is a monument, the eventual role of architecture is to be a background to moments of human activity created in it. These moments are neither ethereal nor suggestive; they should stand in balance to the tectonics and materiality of architecture.
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Residents of the surrounding apartments are very much a part of the life of the piazza.
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Moments on the market kioks
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Satellite disks on the rooftop of the apartment behind the piazza.
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Like the satellite disks, the cable running above the piazza lends character to the piazza.
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Left Resurfacing. Right Architecture is contextual when it is practical.
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The sense of place of the library, articulated by function and structure.
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The project started as an exercise in abstractioan on the binary relationship between man and knowledge. This language is continually applied to the making of the library and the understanding of its context. The piazza is a social condenser in different patterns, on different scales, over different timelines. The human interactions of the market is organic and fluid, but turns Euclidian and linear in the film festival. There is no definite epicentre of the piazza’s community - the library becomes one of many nodes in its network of human interactions, some happening in just minutes (conversations, bargains), some in hours (readings, memorials), some transcending generations (the church, the homes, and the market).
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The identity of the library was born from a self-contained research tested in an alternate dimension. Now, as part of the piazza, it serves as a social condenser, and as an archive for the memory of its community.
REFLECTION
A Shared World
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Writing a new novel | Vehicle docking at the accession zone.
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Patrons of the market resting and mingling on the tiered seats.
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Having fun with the interactive table in the Pod | Revolving armature retrieving a book to be digitized.
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L0 Plan 1:1000 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tiered seats / theatre Stage and Screen Entrance Vehicle dock / accession Mercato di San Cosimato Green island / playground Chiesa di San Cosimato Via Roma Libera
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L-1 Plan 1:200 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Circulation / gangway Information point Books Desk Tiers Pods Cafe Toilets
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L-2 Plan 1:200 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Circulation / Gangway Information point Books Social / exhibition Reformatting / editing Media pods Concourse Toilets
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L-3 Plan 1:200 1 Circulation / Gangway 2 Digitizing 3 Armature
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Section 1:200 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Tiered seats / theatre Stage and Screen Short throw projector Accession and conveyor Books Desk Tiers Pods Cafe Reformatting / Editing Digitizing
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APPENDIX
1
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Plans and Sections
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Plans
Ground A main entrance B book exhibition C public index D lending library E lecture hall F Ibero-American Institute G school for librarians H binding I cataloguing and bibliography J accession K mail department L Institute of Library Technology M road entrance to basement parking Mezzanine A void over ground floor B landing C main information desk D private study rooms E smoking room F accession G microfilm department H Institute of Library Technology I index of foreign literature J restoration K music L school for librarians M Ibero-American Institute Reading room level A general administration B periodicals reading room C main reading room D specialist reading room E specialist study rooms F photocopying G documentation H exhibition of the history of the library I conference room
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F
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A G
C
B
D
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K J I
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M
L
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D
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Section A-A
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Lighting for different scales of space: from the tasklights for each desk, to the rooflight for a whole floor.
Section B-B
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The endless array of light fixtures guide the sightline and movement of the user.
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APPENDIX
2
Pecha Kucha Case Study 2: Barbican Centre Library / Chamberlin, Powell and Bon
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Continuous Space
Influenced by Scharoun Voyaging through a landscape Stairways create dramatic entrances at the ends and assembly areas Library appears to float within the building
Wayfinding
Easily spotted from a distance Oversized sans-serif letters are easily legible B&W contrast differentiates functions of the immediate floor from adjacent floors
Lighting
The coffer of the concrete ceiling becomes the base unit for lighting fixtures, and hence shelves Diffusers Lightboxes, Track light Spot light LED tubes Clerestory An architectural order that orients the users and organize their movement
Main Library
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short bookcases clear signage divisions between different sections best seller and new arrivsl displays
Analogue index for senior citizens Popular search titles on computer Recommendations from other users
Music Library
An Urban Condenser
Country Music Opera
Pop Misc
Vocal recital
Beethoven
World Music Military &brass bands, orchestral collections
Bach Chamber recital Haydn Composers Choral Instrumental recital recital Composers Mozart
Jazz anthology Film & TV
Jazz
Pop Vocal Male
Pop Groups
Pop Vocal Male
Pop Groups
Pop Vocal Female
Pop Groups
Pop Vocal Female
Pop Groups
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Blues &’ Gospel
Pop Instrumental Pop Compilations
Opera
Opera
One level beneath the children’s library, but feels contiguous with the main library due to the smooth transition via the stairway
The library serves the people who live (900k) and work (350k) in the city square mile
Substantial collection of CDs (16k, 2nd largest in London), sheet music (62k titles), periodicals, documentary DVDs, and reference books
Students of nearby arts schools, day schools and nurseries, Professionals Residents of the Estate