A Library Design

The knowledge system, like many other systems in modern society, has become more and more specialized. It has become difficult to understand the foundation on which we base our daily life and work upon, and easier and easier to overlook this issue itself.

As Jorge Luis Borges intriguingly wrote in his short story "Funes the Memorious", when all the detail is presented in front of us, we lose the ability to think and imagine. Because according to him, to think is to forget; to generalize. Ironically, despite the amount of information we have, modern day life is essentially opaque.

The notion of nearby is also disappearing. What we try to do, through the lens of this project, is to explore how a modern library situates itself in such premise.

Anecdotal Mapping Timestamps under current construction proposed site for library location of observers

Different states of The Learning Field

*Yeezy Season 3 and 'Waves' at Madison Square Garden (2016)

*The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1566)

**Metal Sculpture by Richard Serra (N/A)

***Holyday by James Tissot (1876) floor plan

Mountain dedicated to physical learning activities

Third floor plan where knowledge is strictly divided between each room containing a different condition fully adhered single ply roof membrane

150 mm rigid insulation

12 mm glass-fiber-reinf. gypsum board

38 mm corrugated steel decking double glazing

10 mm toughened glass + 12 mm cavity + 2 x 10 mm laminated safety glass suspended ceiling: 16 mm plasterboard

130 mm screed, reinforced, polished

76 mm corrugated-steel decking

W410 x 173 steel I-beam vapour barrier

300 mm batting thermal insulation

12 mm rockwool mat

16 mm gypsum board

130 mm screed, reinforced, polished

120 mm thermal insulation

300 mm reinforced concrete

100 mm rigid insulation vapour barrier

600 mm concrete foundation wall

100 mm batting insulation

16 mm gypsum board

2 mm aluminium floor deck cladding

W410 x 46 steel I-beam steel grating, galvanized solar blind accordion door: double glazing panel size 1400/5000 mm

COVID-19: A Wake-up Call to Lost Spaces

The Parking Lot: A Case Study

Finalist Project of theARK_ International Design Competition

The local economy has been strongly affected by the current pandemic. Cities can no longer depend on tourism and inhabitants are too anxious to risk going out on the streets. For this reason, points of public space are established in the different neighbourhoods of Montreal in this proposal, moving the masses away from the center of the city. Our project recognizes the need to bring a feeling of security by dispersing people in the dense city, and preventing large gatherings in the downtown core. By providing new public interventions in neighbourhoods outside of the city center, this project addresses the specific needs of each region while also encouraging people to spend locally, boosting the local economy. In addition, a presently abandoned space is identified, one without a future and with ease of reuse: the parking lot.

Correlational Studies of Cases in Montréal

Total confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people as of June 8, 2020 Median

Overabundance of Parking

Surface lot Garage

Lots

Employing the simple and commonly found materials of the metal scaffold and the wooden pallet, our proposal works to establish public spaces built by the people based on their own needs and desires. This standard material makes it easy for objects to be reusable and readaptable.

P2: Art Exhibition Space

This parking lot is located in Plateau Mont-Royal, an area of Montreal known for its vibrant art culture. The region is one of the ten urban neighbourhoods in Canada with the highest concentration of artists. Out of 7,560 workers, 605 are artists, for an artistic concentration of 8%. Using an abandoned parking lot, this exhibition space provides a means for local artists to display their work at a time when their field is hit hard by the pandemic.

P3: Recreational Space

In the heart of Saint Laurent, a neighbourhood with a population of which 20% are youth (0-14), this parking lot intervention provides a recreational space for children to enjoy.

P4: Performance Space

This lot located in Pointe Ste-Charles, one of the lower-income neighbourhoods of Montreal, is repurposed into a socially-distanced performance venue. It can benefit the local cultural community, which is well-known for its live theatre performances that have been negatively impacted by the pandemic.

Numerous news outlets have reported on Montreal restaurants struggling to survive during COVID-19 due to social distancing requirements greatly reducing their capacity. Nearby vacant parking lots can be repurposed to attract customers to partake in these local businesses. They can order from the restaurants, and come eat leisurely on the elevated platforms, safely socially distanced from one another, and watch a movie projection on one of the many vacant walls surrounding parking lots, like this one here found in Old Montreal.

Moiré a garbage bag directional concentric draping

The first part of the studio (steps 1.1. to 1.4.) consists of short exercises in which formal systems (systems of shapes and relations in two- and threedimensional space) are defined and iterated to generate architectural conditions. These exercises are an introduction to generative drawing, visual computation, and formal interpretation. In the second part of the studio (steps 2.1. to 2.3), the formal system responds to an urban context to be abstracted. The proposed architectural intervention exhibits formal resolution with regards to the defined set of architectural priorities and intentions emergent from the moiré pattern.

1.2. Transforming

The moiré pattern is generated when a set of lines intersects closely with another, e.g. through transformations like shearing.

1.4. Spatializing

The manipulation of moiré through physical modelling launched the spatial study of the pattern, generating culling strategies for three-dimensional design. The physical models were made of mesh, grid-like material in order to create interstices of lines to generate the moiré pattern. Through photography, their behaviour is captured and studied through cause and effect verbs, and their diagrams.

hover, cloud grow, enclose, circulate

2.1. Mapping

In what kind of environment can the moiré thrive in?

The McTavish Reservoir

To unknowing passerby, the McTavish Reservoir is but a sports field for the McGill campus, its current program on the surface. After all, the land is relatively flat with almost no vegetation on it. At its perimeter, however, rests a natural cliff with rich features that redeem the relative plainness of the former. The cliff stands tall, and even taller with the trees and plants that grow from it; the whole at least 20 metres high. It therefore receives a lot of sunlight. Moreover, water oozes from the cliff, and glazes the rocks. The entirety feels organic, and self-sustaining.

Similarly, the site has features that could sustain the moiré pattern. For moiré to take into effect, the pattern needs a simple background that is not busy. The interstice between lines cannot be overcome by abundance of things. So, the plainness of the site is actually helpful; and the richness of the cliff provides a simple yet provocative background to gaze at.