P2A - Digital Library at the Waterfront

 

Library for Play - design progress...

First attempt at floor plans...

- focusing on interlinking spaces
- common spaces intersect with digital consumption (study spaces) and digital production (workshop) spaces
- physical intersections produce social interactions - knowledge transfer, centred around vertical circulation
- what else can the architecture do to facilitate social interconnectivity and exchange of ideas?
- seems to be a lot of open-ended spaces... need to further refine spaces - with program? material? detail? gaming concepts?
- i think the building is still a bit too big... gross 37000sf.. maybe my scale is still off..
- compared to: KPMB library at bathurst/front is only 16000sf

Sketch of main lobby, looking west.
- visual and physical intersection of spaces
- starting to look into materiality

Digital Library - some precedents and finally design!

SOME PRECEDENTS...

1. Rhijnspoor Building by Powerhouse Company

- didn't get a chance to go to their lecture thursday, but did look up on their projects
- Rhijnspoor Building, Amsterdam - Amsterdam University of Applied Science technology building
- "the architecture of meeting" - a focus on knowledge through encounters with others
- each faulty has its own floor, each with a terrace poking out into the atrium
- atrium is "showcase" space - everyone can see everyone else
- relates to my first strategy - physically/visually engaging spaces - playfulness in spatial organization and intersection of spaces;
- relates to second strategy as well... opportunities for social interactions to occur
- "human interactions are a result of spatial interactions"
- how can this atrium be more engaging for library typology? what are we engaging with? people? information? tools? devices?

2. CAMP - Creative and Meeting Place, ChiangMai, Thailand

- came across this place inside a mall in ChiangMai, Thailand (I was here in March 2014)

- cool variety of spaces to work in - variety of levels, a "tree house", separated meeting rooms on the mezzanine, cafe, modular furniture

- different levels of engagement; offers choices - choose to work alone or with others 

- starting with the manipulation of these variety of interior spaces, how do i translate the playfulness into the architecture? how does the architecture emerge from a variety of levels of engagement? 

NOW FINALLY SOME DESIGN STUFF...

1. site plan
- blue angled box is "atrium" with other program (other boxes) poking into it
- angled toward the park to address the park's play activities as well as the rest of the city
- drawing from other playful elements along the waterfront, namely the wavedeck, acts as a ramp/stepped ampitheatre along south side of building to the second floor of the library; informal seating and slide in the summer, artificial tobogganing hill in the winter

2. East and South Elevations
- busy facing the city; quieter facing the lake (and airport); more quiet - parking/servicing toward residential on north side

3. Program
- as per last post - a bookless library focusing on access to and production of digital information and media
- programatically separated "boxes", each with an intersecting portion sticking out into the main atrium
- study = personal computers, laptops, devices for independent study (personal engagement, accessing/consuming information)
- workshops = places for classes, digital equipment use (eg. 3d printers, arduinos, music studios, etc) (learning/production of digital media)
- meeting/collab = various spaces for meetings, group work, (IE. CAMP-like interiors) (social engagement, collaboration)
- rooftop cafe? greenspace? something? pokes out and is visible at ground level, encouraging circulation of exploration, navigation, curiosity...
- bonus! maybe a designated space for gaming too? videogames are digital somethings that can be borrowed

I think that's all for now... thoughts and wording is still kind of all over the place.. massing next!

Thoughts, Ideas, Approach?

Defining an issue...

current digital design and computational design is too focused on form-finding or optimization of performance, reducing architects to programmers or material scientists 

Creating a condition in which...

architecture of the digital age starts converging into one style based on optimization of form through material science, parametric design, computational design. Architect is relieved of decision-making role (essentially, design)... so... digital design lacks human intelligence, intuition, and play.



... this issue is addressed in Jose Sanchez' Gamescapes article (2013), and he believes that game mechanics (through open source/crowd sourcing) can change computational design thinking, resulting in an infinite amount of design possibilities: focus is no longer on optimization, but on play and search - play as design, exemplified in his Bloom project for London 2012 Olympics...


 BUT question becomes: where does the architect come in? if we design rules for play, and then let open source/crowd source create design possibilities, where does architectural design come in? this seems like we are relying on participant engagement as design... or is that ok... ?

Video games are... 

an emergent cultural form made possible by advances and development in digital hardware, software and the Internet. Rising popularity and commercial success of videogames is creating a shift in focus on the importance of game theory, game mechanics, and gamification in all industries. Game designers Zimmerman and Chaplin's manifesto in 2013 (http://kotaku.com/manifesto-the-21st-century-will-be-defined-by-games-1275355204) starts to advocate that our century will be defined by games... also, videogaming industry is growing exponentially (multi-billion $ industry)... also, more and more people spending more and more time playing games... so, game theory / game mechanics will be playing a larger role in various different industries ... how does architecture respond? how is architecture affected? how can architecture play a role in videogames? 

... so, game mechanics and design heuristic as a strategy?

taking on a different approach... addressing place/space-making instead of design process... 

Stemming from ideas from these two books... 

Looking at contexts of play (spaces for videogames) 
arcade - first commercially available gaming devices
internet cafes - when home computers were not yet affordable by public
home - rise in home TVs and PCs
public spaces - rise in mobile devices, ubiquitous gaming (technology) 

... virtual and real spaces are starting to converge, we need to develop new typologies of spaces 

the authors suggest a discourse of play and games as human practices in space, defined and explored architecturally - playspaces and gamespaces are architecturally significant - game mechanics is a dynamic, innovative, and challenging outlet which can produce design results or be components of design process (Walz, 2010)

Alternative approach... 

video games are a cultural medium, representational of our current digital culture; and if architecture is an expression of culture, how are videogames represented through/in architecture OR how does architecture benefit from videogames?

The two issues seem separate yet linked at the same time... so I'm kinda stuck... and I'll just end it like this. 

R