Mediatheque
M E D I AT H E Q U E PARIS, FRANCE
The project’s program involved a multi-use library facility with several different functional allocations. A mediatheque is the French version of a library equipped with technology. Set in the heart of the 13th arrondissement of Paris’s residential district, the library overtakes an existing bocce ball court, which is frequented by residents of the surrounding neighborhood. The requirements involved the incorporation of a large existing spruce tree at the south end of the site. The intervention through designing this library involved keeping a majority of the bocce ball court, the tree, and utilizing the program to draw more residents to the site. With rare books, an audio/visual section, children’s’ books, young adults, and adult sections, as well as a fully public auditorium, the design allows for multiple uses for multiple personalities.
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The design of the outer skin of the building was critical in engaging the neighborhood, as well as creating a pleasant reading environment on the inside. The organization of the program pushes reading areas to the exterior, allowing for ample views, sheltering the prized book collections in the middle, away from the harsh effects of sunlight and thermal swings. The double skin façade incorporates horizontal wooden shading louvers on the inner, while creating a large and open buffer zone in between. The resulting effect is a more temperate zone between the two skins, while allowing the ground-scapes to continue from outside to the edge of the building. This buffer zone is the project’s attempt at creating and maintaining the existing park, while separating the elements from the inside.
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The exterior articulation of the facade, although modern in the use of glass and aluminum mullion and structural columns keeps Callout of with the rhythm and lines of the contextual relationship. 2 1 : 100
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