Designing experience through architecture and environment:
Library as Village
Imagining a new and necessary stance for a New York City public branch library in the 21st century.
CHALLENGE
PROJECT
DETAILSCore II Architecture Studio
Stella Betts, instructor
Published in Columbia GSAPP’s Abstract 2016.
Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP)
Stella Betts, instructor
Spring 2016
AFTER
In the center of Downtown Brooklyn, the library as village balances the need for parks and infrastructure with the encroaching pressure of development. A lease of development rights on the designated site, at the intersection of Fulton Street and Bond Street, secures financial stability for the library in exchange for high-density housing.
The displaced library transforms Albee Square into a village. A garden surrounded by four programmatic volumes — the anchor, tower, cafe and pop-up — the village performs on its periphery the diverse set of community functions demanded of the modern library. At its heart, however, are the garden and reading room below.
Both figure and ground, building and street, above and below, the library as village embodies its role as third place: as defined by Ray Oldenburg, a truly public space distinct from the home and workplace. Inhabiting new territory, the library as village defines a new form for an essential civic institution in the 21st century.
The displaced library transforms Albee Square into a village. A garden surrounded by four programmatic volumes — the anchor, tower, cafe and pop-up — the village performs on its periphery the diverse set of community functions demanded of the modern library. At its heart, however, are the garden and reading room below.
Both figure and ground, building and street, above and below, the library as village embodies its role as third place: as defined by Ray Oldenburg, a truly public space distinct from the home and workplace. Inhabiting new territory, the library as village defines a new form for an essential civic institution in the 21st century.
Still curious? Check out some of my other work:
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Arks of Time
Slowing down in a 24-hour city, with dynamic architecture as landscape bridge across the East River.
CHALLENGE
Create a new Pier-X for the East River Waterfront in NYC.
PROJECT
The Arks of Time, a system of five floating platforms moving at different time intervals to create a dynamic landbridge across the East River — and spaces for slowing down in NYC.
Create a new Pier-X for the East River Waterfront in NYC.
PROJECT
The Arks of Time, a system of five floating platforms moving at different time intervals to create a dynamic landbridge across the East River — and spaces for slowing down in NYC.
DETAILS
Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP)
Core I Architecture Studio
Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP)
Core I Architecture Studio
Karla Rothstein, instructor
Fall 2015
Fall 2015
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The arks of time are a system composed of landform ramps, floating platforms and moving arks.
The system is a device to reshape the experience of time; its elements rise above, float on and enter the water, blurring preconceived edges and creating new temporal tethers for New York City. Shifting between Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the East River, at any given moment the system occupies one, some or all of those places as both object and field.
The moving arks traverse the East River over distinct periods of time: a day, a week, a month and a year. The porosity of the envelope, number of interior spaces, and density of occupation of the moving enclosures vary across a gradient that calibrates to their rates of travel. Differing travel speeds also produce periodic intersections that activate the enclosures, transforming the qualitative experience and creating new programmatic spaces.
Passengers inhabiting the system are both lost and found. The river crossing removes all frames of reference, save that of the sky. Over the course of one cycle, the moving arks subtly transform, periodically building ephemeral adjacencies and reshaping the journey.
