Library of the Future

History of the Library

Architect's Handbook, p253

- First 'public libraries' in the 15th century London

- Attachment to institutions - mechanics, literary, philosophical
- Public Libraries Act 1850, free for all, open to the working and lower classes. Providing a civic good, civilising the working masses, seen to benefit society.

- Lending library (book stacks)

- Reference department

- (Children's department)

- Reading rooms - men, women often separated

Open access by 1930s

Dewey decimal classification system

1950s welfare state - reference and study facilities

Other media to complement books - gramophone records, cassettes, video tapes, CDs and DVDs.

British Museum Reading Room (Architects Handbook, p253)

General Requirements

Community libraries - adults and children, reference

University: reference, research, growing collections

One space per 6 students

2.5 - 3.0m2 per reader, carrel or desk

Quiet spaces, noisy spaces

1. Browsing

2. Seeking

3. Studying

4. Meeting 

5. Browsing

Open plans with variations.

Library of the Future (Evolution)

Traditional role of the library:

- Repository of books and other media

- Place for academic and social encounters

Reinterpretations of the modern library:
- An urban living room, centres of urban sociability.
- A third place (apart from home and work), actively used by all citizens. (Ray Oldenburg, Contemporary Library Architecture p10)
- A curation of diverse sources of information and knowledge.
- Changing role of the librarian.
- Collective versus individual. "A building where you collectively do something individual" [Contemporary Library Architecture, p ii]

It may be the case even today that most students access most of their research or information from online sources, where it is through native webpages or digital copies of books and journals. However many students will still choose to go to the library even though they do not strictly need to or intend to access the physical collections available. The library is a place of collective study, each individual or group goes about performing their own personal tasks in a collective community. Of course many also come to access the services and facilities that are available, such as computers, internet wi-fi, photocopying and scanning, etc.

The differences between public and campus libraries - the former becoming more transparent in the hope of attracting passers-by, the latter can take on a more insular approach with private study spaces for students that allow students to retreat from the outside world for the day.


Maximising flexibility.
Allowing future changes and expansion.
From book storage to online information exchange.
Additional ventilation & secure power, suitable lighting

Precedents:

- Seattle Public Library (OMA, Rem Koolhaas)

- The compartmentalisation of the open plan.
- The continuous book spiral, which accommodates for the future expansion/contraction of the book collection.

- Sendai Mediatheque (Toyo Ito)

Flow of spaces. The architecture does not create spaces by means of enclosure, the open plan allows the user to define space organically.
Transparency.

The ground floor foyer blurs the distinction between inside and outside, private and public. The transparent glazed walls also open up as folding doors. The interior becomes a crucial part of the public domain, visitors sit and relax to have tea and coffee as if in the context of a public piazza.

The organic and arbitrarily forms of the steel tube provide structural support and allow the flow of natural light, ventilation and mechanical services. A thin honeycomb structure in the floor slab convey the forces to the steel tubes. Ito avoids the use of thick, prominent beams which he believes would have disrupted the flow of the space and distracted from the vertical structures. There are no structural walls or bracing. Link

Hollow columns: Rather than the solidity of typical columns, the steel tube structures express a lightness and delicate quality such that it is difficult to tell they are structural.

Elimination of hierarchy: [Tarzan in Media Forest]

Eliminating as much as possible of the distinction between served and service spaces: "Interactive service model"[Tarzan in Media Forest]

Rejecting the allocation of specific programs for rooms: Rather than having a room for drinking coffee and a room for reading books, spaces should accommodate multiple and diverse activities. [Tarzan in Media Forest]

- Tama Art Library (Toyo Ito)

The imperceptibility of interior and exterior, difficult to determine where one begins and another ends, like walking into a forest - a forest of concrete trees. The columns do not divide or cut off space, they subtly suggest zones and differentiations. Rather than enforcing artificial terracing or stepping into a level ground floor, the natural slope of the exterior is continued inside, again diminishing the distinction between inside and out.

Delft University Library (Mecanoo)

Floor area: 15,000m2

Program: Underground book archive, reading room, uni publisher, offices, historical books & exhibition, study spaces, book binder and book shop. Includes 1000 workstations.

Accommodates: 3000 students each day. Heart of the uni and becomes a landmark with town-sized campus.

Sustainability features: Intensive green roof, high performance glazing facade, subterranean storage for heating & cooling

Symbiotic relationship with brutalist aula (auditorium), concrete "frog" within grassed landscape.

Library within hollow underneath landscape, landscape punctured by cone (symbol of tech)

(http://www.greenroofs.com/blog/2012/01/11/gpw-delft-university-of-technology-library/)

Old Bibliotheque Nationale (1875, Labrouste)

Stockholm Library (1927, Asplund)