Hasta La Ideas

Architecture firm Snøhetta has completed a library at North Carolina State University that features a robotic book retrieval system and a 3D printing workshop (+ slideshow).

Named after a former North Carolina Governor, the James B. Hunt Jr. Library is a four-storey building at North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus.

The robotic bookBot system controls over two million of the library’s books, labeling them with barcodes and storing them in a space far smaller than traditional library shelving. To retrieve a book, students and library users simply browse an online catalogue and select the volumes they want the system to pick out for them from the vast numbers of subterranean bins in which they’re kept.

The 3D printing workshop is positioned within a digital production suite that also accommodates a digital games research lab and a visualisation studio. Other facilities include an auditorium and offices for the Institute for Emerging Issues, a political thinktank led by James Hunt.

Snøhetta designed the library as a mixture of traditional reading rooms and brightly-coloured group study spaces, which include a double-height atrium and a series of indoor balconies.

Aluminium panels clad the exterior and create a fixed system of louvres, providing solar shading for expansive areas of glazing that let natural light pass right through the building.

Snøhetta was first established in Oslo but has since opened a second studio in New York. The firm is best-known for designing the Opera House Oslo, but is also working on an extension to double the size of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). See more architecture by Snøhetta.

Other libraries completed recently include a music library at Folkwang University of the Arts in Germany and a public library inside a glass pyramid in the Netherlands. See more libraries on Dezeen.

Photography is by Mark Herboth.

Here’s a statement from Snøhetta:

Official Opening of SNØHETTA’s James B. Hunt Jr. Library

On April 3, 2013, North Carolina State University will officially dedicate the James B. Hunt Jr. Library, making it Snøhetta’s most recently completed project in North America.

Snøhetta, the internationally acclaimed architecture and landscape design practice, worked closely with NCSU Libraries to set a new benchmark for technologically-sophisticated collaborative learning spaces with the design of the new Hunt Library. It serves both as NC State’s second main library and the intellectual and social heart of the university’s Centennial Campus plan. The Hunt Library also houses the Institute for Emerging Issues, a political think tank led by former North Carolina Governor James Hunt, academic offices and an auditorium. It is designed to be a decisive competitive edge for the university by democratizing access to the technologies driving our economy.

Design

Snøhetta’s Hunt Library design balances the understood pre-existing needs with the University’s emerging needs to create a forward-thinking learning environment. While clearly a contemporary structure within a traditional context of the NCSU campus, the Hunt Library provides a positive platform for influencing its surroundings. Both technical and programmatic innovations are celebrated as part of the learning experience and provide a versatile and stimulating environment for students.

Generous open spaces connect all floors of the library and open stairs emphasise an interactive and social environment alongside more focused study areas. A wide variety of study and learning environments, and technology-focused experimental labs break the now ubiquitous model of the learning commons. “Disruptive” learning spaces with colourful, dynamic furnishings exist beside more traditional study rooms. The design recognises the power of chance encounters and celebrates the role of physical space in the intellectual stimulation of its users.

The new LEED Silver (pending) project provides spaces awash with natural light, expansive views of the nearby lake and outdoor break and seating areas. The building’s façade of fritted glass and a fixed external aluminum shading system help diminish heat gain while maximising views and ambient natural light. Robust materials form the interior spaces and unique, brightly-stained wooden stairs help library users orient themselves throughout the building. Ceiling-mounted active chilled beams and radiant panels provide heating and cooling for the interior spaces.

Snøhetta’s integrated architecture and landscape architecture practice also designed the Hunt Library’s surrounding landscape. The design creates a fluid transition between the masterplanned landscape to the Hunt Library’s north with the natural environment of Lake Raleigh to the south, and links the library to the western edge of NCSU’s Centennial Campus. Snohetta’s plan breaks down the larger masterplan into individual diverse experiences, creates outdoor learning environments and teaching spaces for NCSU students, and incorporates rain gardens and green roofs into the building’s infrastructure for storm water management.

Technology

The integration of state-of-the-art library technology is highly visible in the building’s design. The Hunt Library’s 5-storey robotic bookBot automated retrieval system is capable of holding two million volumes in 1/9 the space of conventional shelving. The system is supported by Virtual Browse, a user-friendly browsing software which enhances the traditional pleasure of browsing a collection by allowing users to see a virtual shelf of materials classified near the resources found by their initial search. The bookBot effectively reduced the total area of the building by 200,000 GSF, allowing more space for collaborative learning environments and technology.

In addition to the bookBot, innovative building features give faculty and students hands-on experience with the large-scale visualisation tools. The Game Lab supports NC State’s Digital Games Research Center by providing an experimental commons to explore collaborative game design and the role of gaming in education. The library’s Teaching and Visualisation Lab, the Creativity Studio, a 3D printing workshop and extensive digital media production facilities enable faculty and students with rapid prototyping, modeling, and visualisation capabilities. State-of-the-art videoconferencing and telepresence technologies allow collaboration with colleagues across the state and around the world. ROTC students are even able to practice commanding a submarine in a simulation environment developed in partnership with the Navy as a tool to better train cadets.

Location: Raleigh, North Carolina

Library Collection capacity (# of volumes): 2 million +
Total Square footages: Gross – 221,122, Net – 149,226

The post James B. Hunt Jr. Library
by Snøhetta appeared first on Dezeen.

Italian architects DAP Studio added a perforated aluminium tower to this former chapel in the Italian town of Lonate Ceppino, converting the entire building into a public library.

The Else Morente Library, which opened in 2009, was first constructed as the Oratory of San Michele: a two-storey chapel with an ornamental facade of symmetrical pilasters and intricate detailing. For the renovation, DAP Studio decided to restore these features, then replace an existing stair tower with another that would be more sympathetic.

The architects designed a two-storey extension clad with perforated panels to match the light render of the old building. The upper storey of the volume is tapered inward, so that it pulls away from the overhanging eaves of the restored roof.

“The challenge was to respect the historical building but also to [show] its new public role with a contemporary element,” architect Elena Sacco told Dezeen. “The new volume has not only an architectural value, but it also allowed us to clear the historical building of the functional and potentially invading elements.”

An entrance corridor with a glass roof connects the two structures on the ground floor, while an enclosed wooden bridge branches across at first floor level.

“The relationship between the two volumes has a subtle nature, made of alignments and visual connections,” added Sacco.

Toilets and archival areas are located in the extension, allowing the library shelves and reading areas to take up the entire ground floor of the renovated building.

The library is divided into four sections and includes a reading room, a study area, a newspaper library and a children’s section. High ceilings allow room for tall shelving systems, comprising a stack of modular wooden containers. These containers are also piled up to make desks.

A multi-purpose room occupies the first floor and can be used as an exhibition room or a conference hall.

Milan-based DAP Studio more recently completed an office interior inside a former factory in Turin. See more architecture and interior design in Italy.

Other libraries we’ve featured include one that appears to float over a shallow pool and one that appears to be clad in translucent marble. See more libraries on Dezeen.

Photography is by Luigi Filetici.

Here are a few words from DAP Studio:

Elsa Morante Library

The pre-existing building for the new Lonate Ceppino Public Library already belonged to Lonate Ceppino’s historical heritage. On a rectangular plan, the two levelled buildings housed the civic library on the ground floor, while the first floor had been left unused. From the outside, the main entrance façade has a higher decorative part which is independent from the roof structure. This façade stands out further on the building gutter line and laterally its design suggests the idea of an unfinished bell tower. In this case, neither the bidimensional outline has a counterpart in the interiors. A few ornamental elements mark the façade hierarchies. The design of the fronts is organized in horizontal bands at different heights while on the north, south and west fronts a system of vertical pilasters apportions the windows on both floors. The east front lacks any decoration and, before the intervention, it was badly compromised by a recently built volume for the service rooms.

The intervention aimed to restore the historical pre-existing building and to adapt the new building to its re-gained functional use. Being inadequate, the previous service’s volume extension was removed together with the internal stairs, which were damaged and not according to laws. The project restored many areas injured by dampness, plasters, floorings and roofing.

Besides the east front a new well balanced volume has been built, including bathrooms, archives and technical systems. This last choice allowed to clear the historical building out of the functional and potentially invading elements, minimizing any demolition and making the facility rooms easier to share.

The new volume’s architecture is marked by a narrower profile on its top, with a sloping side that restrains to give more space to the historical building pitches. The dialogue between the volumes is the key and main theme leading the whole intervention. The relationship between the two is nourished by juxtaposition between matterness and lightness, solidity and instability, opaque and reflecting materials.

Above: site plan

The highlighting of differences underlines the peculiarities of both volumes, in a mutual figure-background relationship. The two buildings are connected through a glazed roofed little volume. The entrance is on the left side and a further wooden connection goes to the first floor.

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

The library hall is divided into 4 specific areas: a conference area with a little newspaper library, the children’s area, the bookcases’ and the reading tables. On the first floor there’s a flexible room for exhibitions or conventions.

Above: first floor plan – click for larger image

Inside the new volume space reduces while climbing upstairs. After the first floor a platform drives you to a little space lit up by a window on a corner. This spot is the zenit of the specific spatial sequence developing inside the building.

Above: section one – click for larger image

The interiors are monochrome, with a resin floor and enamel walls. The stairs and the white metal platform have durmast steps. Lighting is provided by a pattern of incandescent lamps.

Above: section two – click for larger image

Inside the historical building the floor is in durmast too and the original roof has been restored. The wooden bookcases are designed as modular aggregations, able to be assembled at different heights and exhanged.

Above: section three – click for larger image

Client: Lonate Ceppino Municipality
Project: Dap studio Elena Sacco Paolo Danelli – www.dapstudio.com
Structures: GB. Scolari
Facilities: M. Piantoni, A. Bronzoni
Contractor: Gruppo Edilia
Interior Furniture: Habitat Italiana

The post Elsa Morante Library
by DAP Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

News: a library dedicated to design has opened in South Korea’s capital city, offering access to over 11,000 books chosen by an international team of curators and critics.

The Hyundai Card Design Library is backed by the country’s largest credit card issuer, which claims “there are few design museums and libraries in Korea, whereas Korean colleges every year churn out more than 30,000 novice designers.”

A team including British critic and Golden Lion-winner Justin McGuirk, MoMA curator Paola Antonelli and New York architecture and design journalist Alexandra Lange was brought in to select the books, which cover topics including architecture, industrial design, graphics, photography and branding.

Of the 11,678 books selected for the library’s shelves, more than 7000 aren’t available anywhere else in South Korea and over 2600 are either out of print or very rare.

The firm also hopes the initiative will appeal to a cultured group of potential customers: “It makes people feel that if you have a Hyundai Card, you get access to an enriched lifestyle,” says a spokeswoman.

While most libraries are open to the general public or to academic communities, this library can only be accessed by the company’s credit cardholders and their guests, and then a maximum of eight times each month.

Alongside the book collection, the library contains a cafe and an exhibition space, while on the second floor is an area for reading and discussing ideas around a large steel table. The top floor contains a small attic-like space inspired by a reading room in an old Korean palace where princes could concentrate quietly on their studies.

The curatorial team also wrote commentaries on nearly 1000 of the selected books, which can be read through an iPad app available to library users.

Located in Gahoe-dong, an area once home to Seoul’s scholars and noble classes, the library was designed by architect Choi Wook of Seoul studio One o One.

Earlier this year we reported that a fully digital public library without a single book is set to open this autumn in San Antonio, Texas, while in New York, architectural firm Foster + Partners is planning to completely overhaul the city’s public library – see all libraries on Dezeen.

See all architecture in Seoul »

The post Design library opens
in Seoul appeared first on Dezeen.

News: UK firm Foster + Partners has unveiled plans to overhaul New York Public Library’s flagship branch on Fifth Avenue by inserting a contemporary lending library into unused reading rooms and stacks at the back of the building.

At present only a third of the the Stephen A Schwarzman Building is accessible to the public, but Foster + Partners plans to insert a new corridor that will connect the main entrance with a new four-level atrium at the rear, where visitors can browse collections whilst enjoying a view of Bryant Park through the existing tall windows.

“We are reasserting the Library’s main axis and its very special sequence of spaces, from the main Fifth Avenue entrance and the Astor Hall, through the Gottesman Hall, into the dramatic volume of the new circulating library, with views through to the park,” said Norman Foster.

Located beneath the Rose Reading Room, the new section will replace seven relocated floors of closed stacks, while a 300-person workspace for students and researchers will take the place of several offices and storage areas.

Floorplates will be pulled back from the exterior wall to create a series of tiered balconies and visitors will enter the space via a grand staircase that descends from above.

Proposed materials include bronze, wood and stone, which the architects claims will age gracefully and fit in with the existing beaux-arts building designed by Carrère and Hastings in the early twentieth century.

The New York Public Library launched its £185 million renovation strategy earlier this year, but faced criticism as scholars and writers claimed the plans would comprise the library’s existing facilities.

Foster commented: “Our design does not seek to alter the character of the building, which will remain unmistakably a library in its feel, in its details, materials, and lighting. It will remain a wonderful place to study. The parts that are currently inaccessible will be opened up, inviting the whole of the community – it is a strategy that reflects the principles of a free institution upon which the library was first founded.”

Construction is scheduled to commence in the summer and is expected to complete in 2018.

Foster + Partners has been working on a number of projects in New York in recent months, including a vision for the future of Grand Central Terminal and a competition-winning design for a Park Avenue skyscraper.

See more stories about Foster + Partners »
See more stories about New York »

Here’s some more information from Foster + Partners:

Designs for the New York Public Library revealed

The New York Public Library today unveiled proposals for the integration of the Circulating Library into its flagship Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street – Lord Foster presented the plans at the launch of the public exhibition.

The project aims to safeguard the building’s legacy and precious books for future generations. The existing research library will be retained as it is today, with more space for researchers, as will many of the public spaces – the project will open twice as much of the building to the public and will restore the logic of the Neo-Classical design to improve the experience of the library’s historic halls. The two circulating collections will be housed in a spectacular new space previously occupied by book stacks.

The centrepiece of the 5th Avenue and 42nd Street building is the magnificent Rose Reading Room, below which are seven storeys of book stacks. However, these stacks are inaccessible to the public and no longer meet the needs of the books they contain, in terms of capacity, fire safety or preservation. The books will be moved to a large humidity-controlled chamber under Bryant Park, which was created in 1989 as part of the Bryant Park project, and provides the ideal environment for their conservation. Thus the stack space is freed to create a new ‘library within a library’ comprised of the Mid-Manhattan collections and the Science, Industry and Business Library – reinstating a circulating library to the NYPL main building, as had originally existed until the 1980s.

The 13,000 structural points of the existing stacks will be replaced with an innovative new vaulted stone and steel cradle. This move will free the floors from the west façade, allowing them to be peeled back to form a series of balconies – in the process revealing the full height of the slender windows internally for the first time. New study areas will line the perimeter of the balconies and new reading platforms will sit beneath the vaulted ceilings, which are carefully attuned to ensure excellent acoustic performance. The materials palette and design of the interiors will evolve with further development. The current combination shows bronze, wood and stone, which will age gracefully with the passage of time and use. A new internal atrium runs the full length of the base of the circulation library, connecting the visitor facilities to the building’s accessible entrance on 42nd Street.

Just 30 percent of the library is currently accessible to the public – the project will more than double this, opening 66 percent of the building by utilising unused reading rooms, back of house spaces, offices and book stacks. The design aims to make the building more inviting, more permeable and to bring the books to the fore rather than hide them away. Starting with the circulation strategy, the central axis through the Neo-Classical building will be reasserted. Visitors will be able to walk in a straight line through the grand Fifth Avenue portico and the majestic Astor Hall into Gottesman Hall, where a permanent treasures gallery will display some of the most important pieces from the collection. For the fist time, the westerly doors of the Gottesman Hall will be opened up, restoring a sense of symmetry and intuitive circulation across the building. Visitors will enter the new circulation library on a balcony in the centre of the former book stack space, where they will face elevated views of Bryant Park. From here, a grand staircase will sweep down to the main level, aligned with the park, and further to the state-of-the-art education and business library below.

The post Foster + Partners unveils plans
for New York Public Library appeared first on Dezeen.

Huge photographic prints conjure the illusion of translucent marble over the glass walls of this music library at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany (+ slideshow).

Designed by Swiss architect Max Dudler, the Folkwang Library brings together the music archives of three separate institutions into one four-storey building, completing the quadrangle of the former Bendictine monastery that now accommodates the university’s main campus.

The grand baroque buildings of the former abbey had served as both a residence and a prison before their conversion to a university and the library sits over the foundations of a previously demolished military hospital.

Dudler’s concept for the new library was to create “a monolithic body built atop the level base of an old rough stone wall”, with a stepped entrance from the plaza that would reference the raised approaches of the neighbouring buildings.

The marble-like facade was developed in collaboration with photographer Stefan Müller, who visited a quarry to capture close-up images of unhewn stone. Twelve different images were arranged behind the glass panels to reference the twelve different musical notes arranged in a score.

After dark, light filters through the translucent screens to give the building a glowing presence in the courtyard.

A triple-height reading room occupies the building’s first floor and is surrounded by cherry wood bookshelves, while more books can be found on the two gallery floors above.

Lobby and administration areas are located on the ground floor and the library’s archive is contained in the basement.

Other libraries on Dezeen include a glass pyramid in the Netherlands and a knobbly concrete building in France.

See more libraries on Dezeen »

Photography is by Stefan Müller.

Here’s the full press release:

Folkwang Library – the Ruhr district’s central musicology library is handed over to the public

Folkwang University of the Arts is home to one of the largest musicological collections in Germany. Until now, its inventory of approximately 190 000 items of sheet music, sound recordings, images, books and other media has been stored in various archives and libraries across the region. But now, musicological items from three institutions – Folkwang University, the former library of musicology at The Ruhr-University Bochum as well as the music education department of University Duisberg-Essen – have been brought together under a single roof, in a new building designed by architect Max Dudler. Situated on the Werden campus, the library was inaugurated at the end of September 2012.

Folkwang University of the Arts is North Rhine Westphalia’s college of art and music. Its main campus is housed in the former Benedictine abbey of St. Ludgerus in Essen-Werden, situated in the southern Ruhr Valley. The small 8th century site was extended into a princely baroque residence in the 18th century, arranged around a magnificent courtyard (Cour d’honneur). The construction of the new library on the south side of the courtyard by the architect Max Dudler replaces a 19th century military hospital building demolished in 1969.

In 2006 Max Dudler won the design competition organised by the Duisburg branch of the Building and Real Estate Management Authority, North Rhine Westphalia. The project was generously supported by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation.

In 1811, while under French occupation, a prison was set up in Werden Abbey. The Prussians extended this and erected a hospital building on the south side of the courtyard. Upon the demolition of the hospital building, the remaining ensemble of buildings looked unbalanced. Without reproducing the original shape of the prison, the new building encloses this side of the courtyard with its voluminous crystalline structure. The new building’s eastern side adjoins the so-called administrative wing of the old abbey. The volume of the new building corresponds approximately to that of the Prussian wing across the courtyard.

Folkwang Library was conceived as a monolithic body built atop the level base of an old rough stone wall. Max Dudler’s concept for the building is based on the idea of the ‘museum showcase’: An exterior shell protecting the valuable contents within. The functional areas are grouped around the reading room, which lies at the centre of the building. The bookshelves are arranged in strict order around this room, thereby lending scale and structure to the building as a whole.

There are two entrances to the library: The main entrance is from the courtyard via a flight of external steps, designed to approximate the style of the entrances to the other buildings leading off from the courtyard. The library’s other entrance on the Klemensborn serves as an emergency exit. Lending desks, media cubicles, an administration area and cloakroom are situated on the ground floor; the reading room on the first floor. The compact archives are housed in the library’s basement.

The design of the building’s facade was developed in collaboration with the photographer Stefan Müller. Every pane of glass in the facade depicts a large format close-up of a quarry. These photographs reproduce the unhewn stone in its original size. The photographic works were applied directly onto the glazing using a special technique.

In keeping with the elemental meaning of the number twelve in music, twelve motives were pieced together into an overall composition. As with the scagliola technique of the Renaissance used to create stucco marbling, this special photographic technique creates the illusion of the facade being fashioned from the stone material itself.

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

At the same time, a tension is created between the imagery of the textured stone and the flat surface of the glass, reminiscent of the historical sgraffito technique, whereby a graphic embossing is etched into a smooth plaster surface. The new building’s smooth glass surfaces create the perfect impression of a polished monolith. But this is called into question by the translucency of the building’s exterior, thereby playfully breaking the boundaries both from inside and out. Silhouettes of people can be seen beyond the facade. The interior is bathed in a soft, filtered light. In the evening, the building illuminates the courtyard outside.

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

The building comprises a reinforced concrete skeleton with concrete cores to provide stiffening. The glass facade is attached to the building’s projecting structural slabs using the mullion-transom system. The concrete pillars are shaped and positioned according to the dimensions of the book shelves. The pillars are clad in cherry wood, which is also used for the shelving in the reading room. Not all the pillars are load-bearing. Some are used as part of an ‘inert’ air-conditioning system.

Above: long section – click above for larger image

With the ventilation pipes being channelled directly through the reinforced concrete ceilings, this building material’s potential as a heat sink is thereby put to good use. Through coupling this with a heat exchanger, an innovative contribution to energy efficiency is achieved.

Above: cross section – click above for larger image

The post Folkwang Library
by Max Dudler appeared first on Dezeen.