What is a Library?

INDEX 01 What is a library? / Postcard 02 Process Models 03 Process Models 04 Site Plan 05 Design Layout (Ground) 06 Design Layout (Floor 1) 07 Design Layout (Floor 2) 08 Site Section 09 View 10 View 11 Visualisations

The National Library of Prospero, pg 7 at Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai

Shubh Sankhla session Semester 4 2020

The Library of Prospero is imagined as a centralized space of control, and bureaucracy an endless, almost “Kafkaesque” space. This endless nature is seen very prominently in the Bandra Kurla Complex region of Mumbai, where there are “endless” number of administrative buildings and corporate entities with its obedient employees, working day and night to maintain control over the city’s administration and finances. Library OF E-books. Library of Prospero hints at the question - what will happen to a library tomorrow? What shape will it take as books become “e-books”? How will the library react to this condition? Does this library provoke you to be more social or less? Hence, these questions lead me to think of who is the audience in this library? The social hierarchy of the surrounding context consists of the top tier government officials, and corporate CEOs, their employees, the clerks and the so called “support staff”. But the most time spent in the parking lot is by their drivers. Hence, turning this parking into a drive-in library could have an impact towards how they spend their time there. To elaborate on the “drive-in” part of the library, it’s like the car plugs into the parking slot, and the driver has direct access to audio and digital books, which he/she can read sitting in the car, as the car moves out, it plugs out of this system. Another larger audience which could be catered for are the rest of the employees and the general public in the vicinity, as the “drive-in” concept can

01. WHAT IS A LIBRARY?

be taken forward into the “drive-thru” concept also, where they can come scan a QR code and get their book in their book for a brief number of days, then the book needs to be renewed again the next time they visit. This will provoke people by not buying e-books, but borrowing e-books from the library at much cheaper rates, making the library more approachable for everyone. As the site had a tea stall, which contributed to the social space of the area, the essence of the social library could be enhanced by re-imagining this tea stall in the library, creating an informal social space for variety of conversations, as the tea stall breaks the barrier of social hierarchy too. For people who like to find secluded and private spaces to read, write and watch movies, small pods with screens can help. Library, as a “a hub for exchanging thoughts”, can become a place for the workers around to rest and take a break from the overextending work, hence a place to hangout after work hours, breaking some of the monotony of the complex. Library AS an endless loop. The Kafkaesque idea of the library of Prospero, which is a product of the government’s “coup d’état”, meaning a sudden takeover, has led to this idea of an endless loop- coming from how bureaucracy always revolves around us and traps us. A closed, yet endless loop where you are stuck and can’t escape. This concept of an endless loop grew into a sense of continuity, a never-ending process. The endless loop here is flipped around its head and instead of an

endless loop of bureaucracy this becomes an endless loop of fun and relaxation that breaks the hierarchy steeped in bureaucracy. A dark and silent atmosphere for one to read privately, but also a bright and open atmosphere for those informal conversations. The language of this architecture differs from the surrounding context. which flaunts its modernized, sanitized and functional “propagandas” creating a banal atmosphere of work. This routine of all work and no play is bound to create no time to read and relax. The library at BKC acts like a “virus” in this bureaucratic space, in middle of the daily routines of these workers, a virus which brings some leisure in it, which breaks the monotony of the Kafkaesque routine.Here books have evolved into a more portable and user-friendly form, a digital one. The library provides a place to relax from the outside noise, a space of silence under a large looming roof. The form of the library respects the existing parking spaces and builds itself around it. The materiality of the structure is decided on the basis of a question of how modern construction does not use the true limits of the materials used, hence taking and crafting the same material - concrete - to show how a material can be used keeping in mind the surrounding and climate. This design hopes to set an example to the context as how changing the architecture of an existing space (parking) could become something more like a library. The use of exposed board form concrete enhances this message as it brings out the capabilities of the same material used in the context.