site exploration

Before visiting UNAM I had a location where I thought would be best for the location of my library. This has changed as my design has progressed and after the site visit.

This was the area to the left of the library where the grid of the quad interacts with the forested area.

The concept for my project, is representing shadow as an transitional area, where two different condition meet and overlap. The limanality that occurs is representational of the shadow, and this decides the site as well as programs internally.

The condition of the forest area where I had imagined the library to be located was more rigid than I had previously thought. In fact, the grid of the quad continues into the forested area. This is a high traffic area between the parking lot and the campus particularly the library. Many students were relaxing in the shade provided by the canopy of trees reading for class or hanging out with friends. Below are some pictures of that area.










After exploring the the area surrounding the library, my site location was no longer prevalent. I began exploring two other site options.


The first site I considered was shifting the entire design back, pulling the cubes back into the forested area in turn pulling the core of the building into the parking lot. The expressed cubes were still prevalent and correlated with the grid that continued though that area.

or

The second variation was flipping the building so that it can fit between the back of the library and the humanities building. The main form pulls into two long rectangular forms that relate to the order of the campus as well as the humanities building. The cubes are expressed along the back of the building along the edge of the forest, the began to dissolve as they move further away from the library, also serving as the connection piece between the library and the (other) library.


I decided to use the second site, I felt that it had more connection and related better to the site as well as having more complexities. The form of the building would be close to the ground, the majority of the program space would occur underground. I started to explore how the interior spaces would exist and began to represent the same concepts that I been exploring. These include dissolving the order of the grid and having the grid not only apply to the cubes which began to express themselves but to the organization of the spaces of the program inside.


The next step from here is deciding where each of the two main programmatic elements, the book stacks and the reading rooms, are located and how they are expressed.