Museum + Library

Cal Poly Pomona

The main idea of the project was to design a library that is of the ground and grows up from the ground. The program of the library is separated between two levels where the more public spaces are on the ground level and the more private spaces are below. The ground floor features a lecture room, café, exhibition space, and restrooms while the subterranean level consists of offices, meeting rooms, lounge, stacks, archives, and storerooms. Entering the building can be done either from the ground or from below. The plaza is a meandering path that ramps down into the earth. The meandering path attempts to slow down traffic while giving the user a unique experience of being surrounded by water. This path creates a convenient access point into the main library space where It is then continued with a spiral-like maze, inspired by Sou Fujimotos Musashino library, which doubles as both wall and stacks. The spiral also features cutouts, which create shortcuts between the walls and turns what seems to be a complex maze into an open floor plan. These shortcuts can be seen on the circulation diagram in black… The spiral maze will then ultimately lead to a lounge where all forms of circulation, from both levels, meet. This central circulation point and its ability to create a blurred line between ground and the subterranean creates what can be seen as an infinite loop of circulation where the top level ultimately leads to the bottom and vice versa. The plaza is not the only way to enter the lower level of the library. The library has a complimentary ramp, as seen on the right side of the subterranean plan, that meanders down, just like the main plaza, into a sunken plaza. This sunken plaza not only serves as a secondary access point to the library but also serves as an outdoor gathering space immersed by nature. Just as the subterranean floor influences a certain circulation path, so does the ground by floor by utilizing voids in the floor which create double-height spaces between both levels. These voids are shaped in a curvilinear fashion as to resemble the fluid nature of the plaza. The form was generated by re-imagining building 7’s concrete brese soleil while at the same time contributing to the idea of a library growing up from the ground. The roof undulates to emphasize the most prominent areas of the plan and the hanging facade peeks up just enough to expose public spaces such as the lobby and exhibit space. The concrete roof also serves as a shell that protects the public space, giving it a sense of prominence and creating its identity as the new addition to the site. The form becomes one of the key components to emphasizing this idea of being of the ground and growing up from it. It curves up from the earth and it is only when you venture underneath that you can truly be enveloped by the ground.