UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
______, 20 _____
I,______, hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the degree of:
______in: ______It is entitled: ______
Approved by: ______
Coventry Mediatheque A Place for Access, Action, Interaction, and Creation
A Thesis Submitted to The Division of Research and Advanced Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of
MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE
In the School of Architecture and Interior Design Of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning Of the University of Cincinnati
2003
By
Julie D. Engstrom
B.S. Architecture, University of Cincinnati, 2001. Committee Chair: David Niland Abstract
Even as networked digital technology allows for more sophisticated methods of information storage, access, communication, and creation of new works, it remains true that people are the strongest element in, and medium of, their own learning. Historically the activity of human learning as characterized by access to collective knowledge has been formalized and expanded upon in specific types of buildings and institutions over centuries, most strongly by the library. In the multi-layered hypertext of our society, the human being emerges as the most critical medium. Human learning is a timeless phenomenon staged currently in the realm of the digital and physical worlds simultaneously. The strength of today’s ideal library, as both place and institution, is that it consciously acknowledges people as its most important medium by utilizing characteristics of human spatial consciousness to relate the digital and physical worlds to one another.
Coventry Mediatheque Engstrom
Coventry Mediatheque Engstrom
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to my parents, Stephen and Marie Engstrom, whose love of learning in its many forms continues to inspire me. Their support of me and my education has been generous and whole-hearted. For the multitude of gifts to my life, including reviews of this work, I can only thank them by aspiring to be worthy of their admiration. I am also indebted to members of the academic community at the School of Architecture and Interior Design at the University of Cincinnati, especially David L. Niland for his guidance on this project. Many professors contributed to my design skills and understanding of architecture throughout my time here, and I thank them for that gift of knowledge. Teachers at Beaumont School continue to influence my life by their teaching even six years after I departed for college. John-Michael Langa, Sr. Lucia Vasko, Ellen Carreras, Kim Bissett, Carolyn Lindstrom, Pam Buzalka, and others gave me a great well-rounded base for my education and instilled in me a strong desire for discovery. I would also like to thank my family who has supported me from around the country and my friends who have worked and played alongside me. Beth Mennel and Amy Engstrom, my sisters who are my friends, have always been role models for their kid sister. The Hocevar families have given me unconditional love and support. Lucy Kirchner is my role model for profound creativity and the inexhaustible joy of life. Liz Galvin has become another sister and I thank her for the use of her brain and her laughter. Too numerous to name are my friends in the Architecture studio, in the rest of DAAP, and my friends from the outside world, who have all helped me in their own unique ways, which include everything from silliness in studio to phone calls and good luck e-mails from halfway around the world. I thank you.
Coventry Mediatheque Engstrom
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations...... 2 Illustration Credits...... 4 Introduction...... 8 Libraries and Learning ...... 14 The Library evolves as a place of learning ...... 14 Outstanding Libraries of the 20th Century ...... 19 The Current Context of Human Learning ...... 22 The Dominant Paradigm: Digital Networking in The Informational Age...... 22 The Network ...... 22 Access is the key to the Network...... 24 Physical world and Digital World: Learning at Intersections...... 28 Realms of Learning in the Digital World ...... 33 Identity ...... 36 Place and Placeless-ness ...... 37 Creativity and Learning ...... 41 The Proposal...... 45 Analysis of the Design in Terms of the Thesis...... 47 The Site ...... 58 The Building ...... 69 Design Drawings...... 80 Bibliography ...... 83
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List of Illustrations
Figure 1: “We may well go to the moon, but that’s not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us.” -Charles de Gaulle Figure 2: An interpretation of Plato's Academy by C. Frommel Figure 3: Plan of the Forum in Pompeii Figure 4: Boullee's Library concept. Figure 5: Reading room at Viipuri Library, Alvar Aalto. Figure 6: Central Space of Exeter Academy Library, Louis Kahn Figure 7: Schematic plan diagram of Exeter Library, with shaded area indicating resource area. Figure 8: Central area of Black Diamond Library Figure 9: Schematic plan diagram of Black Diamond Library, with shaded area indicating resource area. Figure 10: MCI IP Network as one example of the global communication networks. Figure 11: A representation of the networked digital world. Figure 12: Jeremy Bentham’s pan-opticon prison. Figure 13: Sir Norman Foster, Reichstag Dome. Figure 14: Piazza San Marco in Venice is a mass of intersections. Figure 15: Students in a dynamic learning environment. Figure 16: Sendai Mediatheque, Sendai, Japan. Figure 17: Easy Everything Internet Cafe, Spain Figure 18: Easy Everything Internet Cafe, Holland. Figure 19: Placeless access can be both a benefit and a detriment to learning. Figure 20: Students interact in the public atrium space in the Peter Eisenmann-designed Aronoff Center for Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati. Figure 21: Children getting creative at The Clubhouse. Figure 22: Creative expression contributes to learning. Figure 23: The physical and digital worlds are simultaneously present through the human medium. Figure 24: Diagram representing access. Figure 25: Diagram representing filtration. Figure 26: Diagram representing intersection. Figure 27: Diagram representing serendipity. Figure 28: Diagrams representing flexibility. Figure 29: Diagram representing event experience. Figure 30: Diagram representing organization. Figure 31: Diagram of the Heights area of greater Cleveland showing cities and other notable features.
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Figure 32: View from the President Garfield Memorial at Lakeview Cemetery, showing downtown Cleveland and Lake Erie to the west-northwest, along with Frank Gehry's Peter B. Lewis building at Case Western Reserve University visible to the lower right. Figure 33: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Figure 34: Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra. Figure 35: Diagram showing characteristics of venues local to the building site. Figure 36: Centrum movie theater, across Euclid Heights Blvd. from the building site. Figure 37: The current Coventry Library, branch of the Cleveland Heights/University Heights Public Library. The proposed Mediathque will complement the usage of the current library, a historical landmark. Figure 38: Coventry School, showing playground. Figure 39: Mixed-use building at corner of Mayfield Road and Coventry Road. Figure 40: Streetscape of Coventry Village Business District. Figure 41: Detail of retail building. Figure 42: Restaurant in Coventry Village Business District. Figure 43: Winking Lizard Tavern is one of the long-standing attractions of the neighborhood. Figure 44: The mix of retail, office, and living venues contribute to the richness of the community. Figure 45: Unique retail attracts visitors from all parts of the city. Figure 46: Examples of typical local homes. Figure 47: One of the unique elegant homes of the area. Figure 48: Apartment buildings of various sizes and vintages in the area. Figure 49: The Centrum movie theater, across the street from the site, at night. Figure 50: View looking north from the corner of Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard. Figure 51: View of the proposed site, looking south from the corner of Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard. Figure 52: Parking lot of the business district. Figure 53: Parking Structure at the heart of the business district. Figure 54: Parti sketch. Figure 55: Final design, Floor Plan, Level 04. Figure 56: Building model.
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Illustration Credits
Figure 18: From an advertisement for Vertu Communication, Artist Christopher Bucklow, in Vanity Fair magazine, May 2002. New York: Conde Nast Publications, Inc., 2002. p. 25
Figure 19: An interpretation of Plato's Academy by C. Frommel. from: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp. The Great Libraries: From Antiquity to the Renaissance. New Castle, Delaware, U.S.A.: Oak Knoll Press, 2000. p. 47.
Figure 20: From Wodehouse, Lawrence, and Marian Moffett. A History of Western Architecture. Mountain View, California, U.S.A.: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1989. p. 7.
Figure 21: From Wodehouse, Lawrence, and Marian Moffett. A History of Western Architecture. Mountain View, California, U.S.A.: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1989. p. 344.
Figure 22: From Website:
Figure 23: From Wiggins, Glenn E. Louis I. Kahn: The Library at Phillips Exeter Academy Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated, 1997.
Figure 24: Image by Author.
Figure 25: Image by Author.
Figure 26: Image by Author.
Figure 27: From Website:
Figure 28: Image by Author
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Figure 29: From: Levin, Thomas Y., Ursula Frohne, and Peter Weibel. CTRL [SPACE] Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother Karlsruhe, Germany: Center for Art and Media, 2002.
Figure 30: From postcard: FOTO: BERLIN NR. B 152, UTE + BERND EICKEMEYER/BERLIN
Figure 31: Image by Author and from From Wodehouse, Lawrence, and Marian Moffett. A History of Western Architecture. Mountain View, California, U.S.A.: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1989. p. 100.
Figure 32: From Website:
Figure 33: Image by Chris Eastman.
Figure 34: From Website:
Figure 18: From Website:
Figure 19: Image by Author.
Figure 20: Image by Author.
Figure 21: From Website:
Figure 22: From Website: Yael Stein,
Figure 23: Image by Author and From an advertisement for Vertu Communication, Artist Christopher Bucklow, in Vanity Fair magazine, May 2002. New York: Conde Nast Publications, Inc., 2002. p. 25
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Figure 24: Image by Author. Figure 25: Image by Author.
Figure 26: Image by Author.
Figure 27: Image by Author.
Figure 28: Image by Author.
Figure 29: Image by Author.
Figure 30: Image by Author.
Figure 31: Image by Author.
Figure 32: Image by Diane Hansson. From Website: University Circle Incorporated. Gallery page.
Figure 33: The Cleveland Museum of Art. From Website: University Circle Incorporated. Gallery page.
Figure 34: Image by Roger Mastroianni. From Website: University Circle Incorporated. Gallery page.
Figure 35: Image by Author and From Website:
Figure 36: Image by Author.
Figure 37: Image by Author.
Figure 38: Image by Author.
Figure 39: Image by Author.
Figure 40: Image by Author.
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Figure 41: Image by Author.
Figure 42: Image by Author.
Figure 43: Image by Author.
Figure 44: Image by Author.
Figure 45: Image by Author.
Figure 46: Image by Author.
Figure 47: Image by Author.
Figure 48: Image by Author.
Figure 49: Image by Author.
Figure 50: Image by Author.
Figure 51: Image by Author.
Figure 52: Image by Author.
Figure 53: Image by Author.
Figure 54: Image by Author.
Figure 55: Image by Author.
Figure 56: Image by Author.
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Introduction
Libraries are “vibrant, living cauldrons for research, entertainment, and tomorrow’s new ideas”1 according to scholar and publisher J. Lewis von Hoelle. They will continue to be those vital civic destinations only if they acknowledge the human medium while they embrace the digital medium. In a way that was not attainable in previous generations, it has become possible to have a truly democratic forum for dynamic connection to information resources. Given the current dominance of the digital media, we have an opportunity to connect that digital world with the physical one in a meaningful way: through the human being. The ideal library consciously acknowledges the human being as its most important medium. The Library, a resource that contains the collective knowledge of a society, is used to access information and process it to generate new meanings. It has existed as a formal entity since the advent of writing, but its purpose pre-dates that physical manifestation of knowledge. Oral histories were transmitted and person-to person dialogues took place that served the same purposes as those of our contemporary learning venues. In the age of digital networked media, the model for the ideal library may be that of earlier ‘paperless’ societies,
Figure 35: “We may well go to the moon, but such as the ancient Greeks and Romans, who used casual and formal dialogue, along with that’s not very far. The greatest distance we study and writing, to advance the body of knowledge of their civilization. have to cover still lies within us.” -Charles de Gaulle Currently, the municipal library is in a process of a conscious revolution towards a condition of dynamic learning and varied use relevant to the current state of society.
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“Libraries are at a cusp: poised uneasily between the legacy of Gutenberg and the byte of the digital age.”2 It is essential that it consciously bridges the physical world and the digital world. This new condition can be generated through both the architectural design of its built form and the conscientious approach to designing for the experiential functions that will define it. The force of the networked digital media on our society is strong. According to Jeremy Rifkin, President of the Foundation on Economic trends, “While there are countless other factors that have contributed to the changes occurring in human consciousness none perhaps is more important than the shift in communication technologies from print to computer.”3 The new media of the computer and digital networks, and their usage for digital storage, access, transmittal, and creation of information now plays an indispensable role in learning, and will most likely surpass the physical book in importance for how we work with, and play with, information. The physical book is an item of value still, but it is the management of the digital medium that should be analyzed while it is permeating our culture with increasing speed. Manuel Castells, internationally renowned scholar, author, and Professor of Sociology and of City and Regional Planning, asserts that “…A new communication system, increasingly speaking a universal, digital language, is both integrating globally the production and distribution of words, sounds, and images of our culture, and customizing them to the tastes of the identities and moods of individuals. Interactive computer networks are growing exponentially, creating new
1 Staikos, Konstantinos Sp. The Great Libraries: From Antiquity to the Renaissance. (New Castle, Delaware, U.S.A.: Oak Knoll Press, 2000.) p.i 2 Brawne, Michael. “Introduction” Library Builders (London: Academy Editions., 1997.) p. 6 3 Rifkin, Jeremy. The Age of Access (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2000.) p. 203
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forms and channels of communication, shaping life and being shaped by life at the same time.”4
With this statement he reminds us that this movement has global implications. It emphasizes the connections between varied people and groups around the world that are becoming forums of education. Rifkin agrees about the broad implications of digital media, saying “Today, the computer is organizing communications in a revolutionary way that makes it an ideal tool for managing an economy built around access relationships and the marketing of cultural resources and lived experiences. In the process, it is slowly changing the very nature of human consciousness.”5 Their observations illustrate the profound extent that the evolving media are affecting our lives and culture. The strength of the library as we know it in the United States in our time is that is a democratic form of education. It can be characterized as democratic for two reasons: it is open to all members of society and provides access to large amounts of information. It is true that learning is always taking place through a variety of media: television, formal education of school, newspapers, magazines, radio, and so on, but these media are limited in their sphere of accessibility. A library, however, plays a special role in this list: It is a physical building that can be entered by any human being,. The role of the municipal library in our time is, in the Jeffersonian sense, to provide a democratic place for learning, one that has free and equal access to the body of knowledge of a given society. That access encompasses the open availability of both data and guidance by professionals who are equipped with the ______4 Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society. (Malden, Massachusetts, U.S.A.: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 2000.) p. 2 5 Rifkin, The Age of Access p.206
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highest level of tools. A new library can ‘contain’ an infinite amount of information to be accessed. "The fact that the contents of a whole library can be stored on a single chip, or the fact that a single library can now store the digital content of all libraries, together represent potential re-thinking: new forms of storage enable the space dedicated to real books to be contained…."6 The massive amounts of information available are overwhelming. Access to, rather than ownership of resources is the strength of the library. The assistance by both the library consultants and the positive influence of the infrastructure of the building will contribute to the filtration of information and extraction of meanings by library users. Formal education excludes certain people, either though age or economics or some other admission requirement. The library gives the lifetime learner, and creator of new work, the full opportunity to access and learn all that is possible to learn. Any member of society is given the opportunity to learn, and this is a value that shall be retained and expanded upon as the library evolves. Clearly the future of the library will be dependent on the factor of digital technology; but even as networked digital technology allows for more sophisticated methods of storage, access, communication, and the creation of new works, it remains true that people are the strongest element in their own learning. The term media is one that can apply to the human being. The word media is defined as, a) an agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred, b) a means of mass communication, c) transmissions which are disseminated widely to the public, d) an object or a device, such as a disc on which data is stored, e) a surrounding environment in which something functions and thrives, and f) a
______6 Koolhaas, Rem, and OMA Seattle Public Library Proposal
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filtering substance.7 A concept that emerges is that the community of people involved through the network present in a library can actually exist as the filtering substance; as a body of dynamic eddies of synthesized knowledge. Their work and interaction with one another activates both the digital and physical space, and creates a new, almost tangible, composite world. This new construct is evidence of the people as the medium of greatest influence, in the sense that they play the role of the agent of conveyance, the force of communication, the active device for storage of their own ideas, the environment in which meanings function and thrive, and the actual filtering substance. The basic condition has been true throughout all of history, and remains true even as the number of those involved grows and the rate of exchange accelerates. A library building is still an appropriate and worthy institution, especially when seen as a place to publicly connect to other people, now both digitally (at any distance and location) and physically (including socially and for guidance). The strength of today’s ideal library, as both place and institution, is that it consciously acknowledges people as its most important medium by utilizing characteristics of human spatial consciousness to relate the digital and physical worlds to one another. This analysis and design will seek to develop a civic place that stages learning through “discovery, scholarship, and creation,”8 in the context of the richness of a library. A habitat for a variety of learning experiences will be developed that will demonstrate this new structure of information network and the new priorities in the way we access and interact with information. A dense mixed-use commercial area
______7 Website: www.dictionary.com 8 Olley, John. “The Art of Reading” Library Builders (London: Academy Editions., 1997.) p.10
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surrounded by residential buildings in the city of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, will be the site of this civic building.
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Libraries and Learning
The Library evolves as a place of learning The history of the Library is really the history of learning. Knowledge has been passed on and expanded over the course of human history, and the site and means of this exchange of knowledge has evolved over time. “Libraries are the memory of mankind,” according to the German poet Goethe. This has been true throughout history, since people began to generate and assemble written works that encompassed the collective knowledge of their societies. The Library as we know it now, a place where writings are collected and used, developed slowly over many centuries. The storage, access and conveyance of knowledge were in full development by the height of the ancient Mediterranean civilizations. “All the evidence points to the fact that the history of private and public libraries as we know them, and of the free movement of books as an essential prerequisite for the development of intellectual activity, really starts in the Hellenic world, even though collections of written documents and ‘closed’ school libraries had existed in the Middle East [Sumer] at least as early as the third millennium B. C. 9 Through the Hellenic, and into the Classical period, culture developed around the intellectual life of citizens. Great scholars practiced both verbal Figure 36: An interpretation of Plato's Academy dialogues with their students and wrote and collected manuscripts. Discussion in person and by C. Frommel dialogue through letters played a strong role on the education of scholars.
______9 Staikos, The Great Libraries p. 29
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“Socrates himself left no written work. What is more, he had something of an aversion to books and held them in scorn, regarding them as mere substitutes for productive oral dialogue, even though he acknowledged their beneficial role in the education of the young and the dissemination of knowledge generally. Yet these views of his did not, in the end, prevent him from building up a library of his own.”10
To clarify his beliefs, “If Socrates had reservations about the mindless proliferation of books, it was probably because he did not believe that books were capable of generating constructive dialogue, as Plato explains in The Sophist.”11 It is clear that there was a struggle for importance of means of knowledge storage and information transfer. Both verbal and written elements are valuable for the retention of past knowledge and the generation of new meanings. During the Classical period in the Mediterranean region, the focus on public (including anyone) or other semi-public social (including select peers or based in a community) dialogue as the means of education and pursuit of learning may be an ideal model for all following societies. In ancient Greece, the Agora was the term for the public space, the location of markets and city government, at the center of a town where information exchange took place. It was the site of constant human interaction. “…One can see the value Greek culture placed on public life. Free men in its democratic cities spent most their waking Figure 37: Plan of the Forum in Pompeii hours out-of-doors in the company of others, and the noblest occupations were those
______10 Staikos, The Great Libraries p. 31 11 Staikos, The Great Libraries p. 32
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involving the human mind: literature, philosophy the arts and sciences, and politics.”12 A colloquial culture developed in that knowledge-seeking society, producing great works which formed the basis for modern western culture. Very similarly, ancient Roman settlements were centered at the Forum, the Roman civic center. In Pompeii, the Forum was an open plaza surrounded by a colonnade. Beyond the colonnade were the various civic functions: food markets, a temple, guild offices, a political election site, government offices, an assembly hall known as a Basilica, and public lavatories.13 The Forum with its varied uses and open public space acted as the primary place for people to interact. It was like a theater stage waiting for the actors. Verbal exchange of knowledge was common to all people, so it could be described as the most open and free means of learning. In terms of physical development of library buildings in the ancient Mediterranean region, the library functioned as a storehouse with discrete access areas. Staikos tells us, “The only Greek library for which we have firm evidence concerning architecture, layout, fixtures, and fittings is that of Pergamum.”14 He goes on to describe the condition of openness that characterizes the main room of the library. The bookcases line the walls, but only a small number of books were kept in that room. The others were stored away from light, dust, and precipitation. That left the main room for reading and also for civic events. “The hall would have been used as a reading room and also for debates, lectures, and ceremonies. Extra rooms – and these would have been austere, impersonal rooms of no
______12 Wodehouse, Lawrence, and Marian Moffett. (A History of Western Architecture. Mountain View, California, U.S.A.: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1989.) p. 56 13 Wodehouse and Moffet, A History of Western Architecture p. 66 14 Staikos, The Great Libraries p. 94.
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architectural distinction – were therefore added on for the storage of cataloged books as the library expanded, as well as scriptoria and study rooms where manuscripts were catalogued and edited.”15 The work and the people are segregated in this example. They meet in a common space, which can be characterized as a vessel waiting to be filled with the activity of the learners who came to the venue, similar to Agora and the Forum. Writing and reading were slowly developing as significant means of information recording and transfer, especially in the many centuries known as the Dark Ages. During the Middle Ages, monasteries emerged as the primary locations for the storage of knowledge and their schools were the primary sites of learning. Later, the concept of University education brought learning back into the secular realm. The University system made a “decisive contribution to the spread of learning and the flowering of the Renaissance.”16 The Renaissance, a “re-discovery and re-evaluation of the ancient world…brought back the familiar atmosphere of books and libraries that had existed in ancient Athens, Alexandria, and Rome.”17 The concept of dialogue returns with great strength in the school, but learning in a library was still the domain of those privileged university participants. Throughout the Renaissance, the buildings themselves were shrines to the book. An example of this phenomenon is French Neo-Classicist Etienne-Louis Boullee’s18 design for a royal library. It consists of a massive barrel vault lined with books that calls to mind the scale Figure 38: Boullee's Library concept. of St. Peter’s Basilica in that it reduces the individual person to a speck of dust in terms of
______15 Staikos, The Great Libraries p. 94 16 Staikos, The Great Libraries p. 205 17 Staikos, The Great Libraries p. 215 18 Wodehouse and Moffet, A History of Western Architecture p. 342
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scale. That spectacular conception of volume in his design illustrates the belief held by the privileged classes that learning was a sacred experience, meant to connect humanity with the ‘other’, equating the realm of knowledge with that of a deity. Library users are shown in Boullee’s illustration to be in discussion as they access books, reminiscent of the interaction between the Classical scholars. Even for its grand scale, the element of humanity is valued. While ‘public’ libraries existed from the Classical period onward, they were limited to use by or used on behalf of the privileged class.19 The democratic library, that is the library of the common people, became dramatically popular through the public library movement during the mid-19th century in the Unites States. “The Boston Public Library, established in 1848, was the first publicly supported municipal library in America, and the first public library to allow people to borrow books and materials, a truly revolutionary concept at the time.”20 The Carnegie model was also a strong force for the endowment of funds (his own and those of other philanthropists) that allowed thousands of libraries to be built in the United States, and would allow free access to library materials.21 One anecdote that is striking in its implications for democratic use of the library is, “…urban library users, especially those from immigrant families, took little notice of the librarian at all. Taking for granted their right to use public space, they confounded the expectations of library officials by treating the library as an extension of the public street.”22
______19 Staikos, The Great Libraries p. 30 20 Boston Public Library. Main Page.
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The democratic model for free and open access to all is one that is worthy of emulating, especially as the adaptation of digital media makes it the dominant condition. It is expensive to own a computer, the software, and the services that allow for its full exploitation for purposes of learning. It will be increasingly important, even as the cost of the hardware drops, to provide free access to the digital network through which the new library will serve its patrons.
Outstanding Libraries of the 20th Century
In examining the nature of the library building and its value placed on the users, two excellent examples of success emerge: The Viipuri Library by Alvar Aalto and The Library at the Philips Exeter Academy by Louis Kahn. Both of these libraries achieve a balance between accommodating the library resources and the person who uses them. They are elegant formal pieces of architecture and they are functional places for learning. Both elevate the user to equal status with the book, unlike the example of Boullee’s library as cited earlier. Elements that contribute to this success include customized areas for specific uses, generous vertical and horizontal space that is still small enough to be related to, and careful detailing Figure 39: Reading room at Viipuri Library, that brings cohesion and clarity to the projects. Their attitude as conveyed through the Alvar Aalto. architecture is that the user is the most important part of the library learning process. It is worthy of emulation. The Viipuri Library demonstrates Aalto’s sensitivity to the human element with its graceful functional spaces. Technical requirements are served discreetly to free up the interior spatial volumes for the event of learning. Skylights and electrical light are carefully
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placed to diffuse over the space, further assisting the work of the library user. Aalto masters fluidity of form and motion to create pure spaces that flow together. “In the Viipuri Library, Aalto used a complex system in which circulation inside the building, the arrangement of the books, access to them, the act of reading and all the dynamic originated by the calm and humanised functioning of the building created a moderately sanctified ritualisation of culture”23 This ‘calm and humanized’ space make it an ideal venue for learning. The Exeter Library exemplifies a sensitive and detailed approach to every part of the design which establishes a clear organization of function. Building functions are demonstrated through form and material treatment, which reinforces the clarity provided by the radially- symmetrical floor plan. The massing is organized around a central atrium space. Library users are able to view activities across the central atrium space, and also can cross paths with their peers in more intimate corridors, both of which allow them to connect visually with one
Figure 40: Central Space of Exeter Academy another in a multi-layered experience. The organization of the building dictates that the Library, Louis Kahn visitor enters and engages with the ground floor of the atrium space, then moves upstairs to the stacks that are adjacent to that vertical central space. After attaining the resources of his choice, he can move towards the outside wall where a study carrel awaits him next to a window. He is filtered through the space until he is alone with a book in the light, as Louis Kahn determined was ideal. Kahn succeeds in generating a place that accommodates both the reader and the book in a thoughtful manner. The human medium is clearly valued, as it should be in a facility for learning. Another library that has some valuable qualities is the Black Diamond Library in Figure 41: Schematic plan diagram of Exeter Library, with shaded area indicating resource ______area. 23 Pla, Maurici Article: “The Revolution of Partial Knowledge.” Website:
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Copenhagen, Denmark, by Architects Schmidt Hammer & Lassen. The tool of the central atrium is used here as well, and serves the same purpose of visual comprehension of the space and activities that are being engaged in by the people there. This addition to the Royal Library houses public space, a café, conference rooms and a chamber music performance hall, reading rooms, and offices. That dynamic program with its transparency of function creates a vital place. Visitors are received through a transparent glass plane that is hung from the more massive black glass box above, as if sliding under the significant body of the destination. In this entry level are located the café, shop, security control station, and assembly rooms. These most public functions act as a filter for the visitor. Upon reaching the base of the central atrium space, the visitor can move up the escalator to the upper reading areas. As a whole, the library serves as a cultural center that is imbued with the ‘town square’ community feeling because of its centralized plan, vertical central space, and visual Figure 42: Central area of Black Diamond Library clarity. The Viipuri Library, Exeter Library, and Black Diamond Library are models of humanist learning venues. The library as a building type has a rich history as the storehouse of information and conveyor of knowledge of societies throughout history. Its role as a civic center that allows for the free and public access of extensive resources, (be it the book in the previous exemplars or digital media in later exemplars), is its strength and the reason that it must survive the changes that are taking place in our time.
Figure 43: Schematic plan diagram of Black Diamond Library, with shaded area indicating resource area. http://www.designmp.com/en/archivos_htm/magazine_htm/magazine_30_1.htm
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The Current Context of Human Learning
The Dominant Paradigm: Digital Networking in The Informational Age
It is already established that the Western World and other first-world countries are in an electric and electronic era. Micro-processors, computers, and telecommunications are the building blocks of the electronic information revolution.24 They have altered the way we store, manage, transmit, and utilize data. Ultimately, they come together to allow for the existence of a network.
The Network
The entire human population is increasingly connected in a network of networks. It is a digital world, without grounding to time or place, and it is the greatest source of possibility for uniting the people of the physical world. The multi-layered network consists of “…A global, horizontal communication network of thousands of computer networks (comprising over 300 million users in 2000, up from less than 20 million in 1996, and growing fast)…”25 The connection between learners is the outstanding characteristic of the Figure 44: MCI IP Network as one example of library today. “Having access to multiple circuits—i.e., being connected—in the new the global communication networks. network economy is as important as being autonomous and propertied in an earlier market
______24 Rifkin, The Age of Access p. 16. 25 Castells, The Rise of the Network Society p. 6-7
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economy.”26 Learners are connecting to resources, including one another, and creating a place in the invisible, ‘acoustic’ space that only exists in our imaginations. “Kevin Kelly, editor at large of Wired Magazine, speaks for many enthusiasts, when he suggests that ‘the central act of the coming era is to connect everything to everything.’ Kelly foresees a future where ‘all matter, big and small, will be linked into vast webs of networks at many levels.”27 The act of connecting and the presence of a connection of the infinite points of activity are a continuing manifestation of what the Internet was first conceived for the purpose of accomplishing: Taking the power away from one point and setting up multiple points of control and access. The Network allows, for the first time, a forum that transcends space and races time. The concepts of ‘upload’, and ‘download’, when seen in this framework, can be seen as the pieces of a cycle. “The notions of sequentiality and causality are replaced by a total field of continuous integrated activity.”28 They are the paths of transfer of a body of work(s) that compound into more work, used here to mean both activity and product. “While the players give up a degree of autonomy and sovereignty, the spontaneity and creativity that flow from network-based Figure 45: A representation of the networked collaboration give them a collective edge in the new, more demanding, digital world. high-tech economy. Because networks involve complex channels of communications, diverse perspectives, parallel processing of information, continuous feedback, and reward ‘thinking outside the box’, the players are more likely to make new connections, generate new ideas, create new scenarios, and implement new action plans in what is becoming a hyper-commercial environment. Time Warner’s Walter Isaacson captured the significance of the shift in the capitalist ______26 Rifkin, The Age of Access p. 207 27 Rifkin, The Age of Access, p. 19. 28 Rifkin, The Age of Access p.206
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organization when he observed that ‘The old establishment was a club. The new establishment is a network.’”29
All over the world, the digitally networked community is becoming a virtual civic space. “Within the market space of the net, anyone anywhere can issue a petition or publication, utter a cry for help, broadcast a work of art. Anyone can create a product, launch a company, finance its growth, and spin it off into the web of trust.”30 The connection between communication and culture are inseparable. The hyper-active routes of communication are the key to digital media being brought to fruition. “If culture is, in the words of anthropologist Clifford Geertz, ‘the web of significance’ human beings spin around themselves, then communications—language, art, music, dance, written text, film, recordings, software—are the tools we human beings use to interpret, reproduce, maintain, and transform these webs of meaning.”31 The digital communication network is therefore the new stage for society. There is power in its density and extensive reach.
Access is the key to the Network.
Access has long been the word used to describe the right to be allowed to enter, or the description of the location of a path used to enter into, make use of or take advantage of something. We now also use it to mean obtain or retrieve something, often information. The
______29 Rifkin, The Age of Access p.23-24 30 Gilder, Telecosm,. in Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. (New York: Basic Books, 2002.) p. 25 31 Rifkin, The Age of Access p. 139
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right to access something is a privilege to one or many. In a democratic society, access to information is a right that is governed by various laws and policies. The stage of the new network would be useless if we did not have access to it. Today, it is typical for students to access information networks in school and for office workers to access networks in their place of employment. Jeremy Rifkin, scholar of technology, sociology, and economics, discusses the ubiquitous nature of the network: “The notion of access and network…is becoming ever important and is beginning to redefine our social dynamics as powerfully as did the idea of property and markets at the dawn of the modern era. [Until recently, the word access was heard only occasionally and generally was confined to questions of admittance to physical spaces. In 1990, however, the eighth edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary listed access as a verb for the first time, signaling its new, more expansive use in human discourse.] Now, access is one of the most-used terms in social life. When people hear the word access, they are likely to think of openings to whole new worlds of possibilities and opportunities. Access has become the ticket to advancement and personal fulfillment and as powerful as the democratic vision was to earlier generations. It is a highly charged word, full of political significance. Access is, after all, about distinctions and divisions about who is to be included and who is to be excluded. Access is becoming a potent conceptual tool for rethinking our world view as well as our economic view, making it the single most powerful metaphor of the coming age.”32
The digital network inclusive in theory, but exclusive in practice. It is potentially very inclusive. In order for the network to reach its potential as an
______32 Rifkin, The Age of Access, p. 15
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inclusive unlimited forum, access to it must be provided and decoded as new users are initiated to the digital world. Use of resources via the digital infrastructure is one that opens massive amounts of information for access. Rifkin refers to the ‘democratic vision’, and implies that access is not a factor in that concept. Democracy is defined in part by its value placed on social equality between all individuals of a society. Access to equal resources and forums in, for example, a public library, has advanced the condition of that social democracy and will continue to do so. Only ‘free men’ (certain wealthy males, in this case) were participants in the dialogue in that so-called Democratic society of ancient Greece. Today, citizens of the United States and a number of other ‘democratic’ nations have the liberty to participate in the full range of activities that will allow them to learn without limits. Access to digital information networks is the manifestation of democratic vision today. With the understanding that economics plays a role in Figure 46: Jeremy Bentham’s pan-opticon prison. education, it is imperative for access to the most current medium of learning, in this case, the infinite digital forum, to be available at no cost to all. In Architecture, a meaningful concept of access is that of visual access. In the human mind, visual cognition plays a strong role in our perception. “Knowledge available through vision”33 informs us quickly, if often overwhelmingly, of many layers of information. We use our vision while stationary to identify movement, color, light, brightness and contrast, written language, and form. Along with these factors, we use our vision while moving to understand space through formal
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relationships. All of this (along with our previous knowledge) leads to the construction of meaning. A dramatic architectural example of the meeting of democratic and visual concepts of access is the Reichstag dome design by Sir Norman Foster for the nation of Germany. Given the tumultuous and notorious recent political history of the country, the design goal was to use transparency to include the citizens symbolically in the governmental process. Renovation of the old capitol building included the use of glass and mirrors in the dome, which has a powerful affect experienced both from a distance and inside the space. The public who visit the building can navigate a ramp that spirals around the inside of the dome, which is situated directly over the
Figure 47: Sir Norman Foster, Reichstag parliamentary chamber. They can see both the politicians at work and the rest of the Dome. city of Berlin. Visual access in this case serves to illuminate the actions of individuals for the benefit of the entire community. In terms of a mediatheque, visual access will assist in orienting users to the possibilities inherent to the medium of the computer. Computer workstations will be situated in such a way that usage can be observed by any passer-by. This will serve to inform the greater community of the use of the facility with various simultaneous levels of detail. In this way, access equals power to use, to understand, and to possess new knowledge.
33 Hamlyn, D. W. Understanding Perception: The Concept and its Condition. (Brookfield, USA,:
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Physical world and Digital World: Learning at Intersections
Interaction between people defines a society. Their lines of idea communication and their physical paths of travel both create a web of connections that intertwine with one another. At the intersection of those routes is where there is action and creation. In a discussion of the city plans of Venice and Amsterdam, Ben Farmer says, “Routes have their own hierarchies, their own forms and order; they must enable people to interact as well as move about…Where routes do not enable people to interact there is no sense of place…”34 The connections between people are where education takes place, whether at a school between a student and teacher, in a traditional library between a reader and the book, or in a digital network between a learner and vast points of reference in the network. “The computer’s…”, or in a broader sense, the digital network’s, “…mode of organization…mirrors the workings of cultural systems, in which each of the parts is a node in a dynamic network of relationships that is continually readjusting and renewing itself at every level of its existence.”35 Hypertextual reading is a characteristic of learning in the age of digital media, which Figure 48: Piazza San Marco in Venice is a expresses the nature of intersecting routes in the digital world. Ted Nelson, the originator of mass of intersections. the term, describes hypertext as a collection of documents (or ‘nodes’) containing cross-
Avebury, Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1996.) p. 20. 34 Farmer, Ben. “Needs and Means” in Farmer, Ben, and Hentie Louw, Companion to Contemporary Architectural Thought. (New York: Routledge, 1993.) p 24-25 35 Rifkin, The Age of Access p.206
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references or ‘links’ which, with the aid of an interactive browser program, allow the reader to move easily from one document to another. In his words, it is “a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper.”36 The phenomenon of "hypertext is a vindication of postmodern literary theory. For the past two decades, postmodern theorists from reader-response critics to deconstructionists have been talking about text in terms that are strikingly appropriate to hypertext in the computer. When Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish argue that the reader constitutes the text in the act of reading, they are describing hypertext. When the deconstructionists emphasize that a text is unlimited, that it expands to include own interpretations--they are describing a hypertext, which grows with the addition of new links and elements. When Roland Barthes draws his famous distinction between the work and the text, he is giving a perfect characterization of the differences between writing in a printed book and writing by the computer.”37
It is an essential concept in its original usage. In addition, the meaning can be extended into the physical world, as we use various research and creation tools for learning, including our physical context. The routes of learning via hypertext can be compared to the plan of a city, with channels for the flow of information and people, and hot spots of new meaning where there is intersection of those routes, creating activity nodes. This analogy can be extended to
______36 Lexico Publishing Group, Dictionary web site.
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include the physical design of a library. The interaction that happens in an intersection contributes to learning. As we navigate through space and time, we continually re-evaluate our perception of everything. And whether we are interacting with a person, and new idea, or a bend in the road, we are being educated. George W. Gagnon Jr. and Michelle Collay, educators and scholars of education, set forth a theory for learning that supports the concept of intersection of people as valuable for the synthesis of new work. People learn best through collaboration, reflection, and production of work, in semi-formal and formal settings that stage another form of intersection. Constructivist Learning Theory asserts that meaning is constructed. We don't sense meaning, we know meaning. "‘Constructivist' refers specifically to the assumption that humans develop by engaging in the personal and social construction of knowledge. We humans make personal meanings for ourselves and we create shared meanings with others. Thus, humans construct knowledge; we do not receive and internalize predigested concepts without simultaneously reacting to them and engaging them within our own mental maps and previous experiences."38 The discussion of constructivist learning is focused largely on classroom settings, but characteristics of the school classroom and the ‘classroom’ of public Figure 49: Students in a dynamic learning environment. life are similar. The tenets of constructivist learning are 1) ‘Situation’ or ‘agenda’ of goals, 2) Social ‘groupings’ that act as a team, 3) A connection between a learner’s ‘prior knowledge’ and new task, 4) ‘Questions’ that will lead to new discoveries, 5) ‘Exhibition’ of learning and the opening of a larger dialogue, and 6) ‘Reflections’ where critical analysis
______38 Gagnon, George J., Jr. and Michelle Collay. Designing for Learning (Thousand Oaks, California, U.S.A.: Corwin Press, 2001.) p. x.
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occurs.39 It is important to identify library users as learners, and to consider their needs as carefully as those of a child in school. That holistic approach to the development of learning, that includes the production of new works, is the way to support the improvement of society. The library can offer formal learning, certainly, but its strength is the framework for informal, independent learning. The six elements of constructivist learning can be accommodated through the physical infrastructure, digital infrastructure, professional consultation available, and the social character of the venue. Like the spider web that only shows itself when it is covered in dewdrops, so is the constructed knowledge that is evidenced by new generations of works. As Marshall McLuhan said, "When information is brushed against information, the results are startling and effective."40 As the dynamic author and scholar Manuel Castells describes it, “In the new, informational mode of development the source of productivity lies in the technology of knowledge generation, information processing, and symbol communication. To be sure, knowledge and information are critical elements in all modes of development, since the process of production is always based on some level of knowledge and in the processing of information. However, what is specific to the informational mode of development is the action of knowledge upon knowledge itself as the main source of productivity. Information processing is focused on improving the technology of information processing as a source of productivity, in a virtuous circle of interaction between the knowledge sources of technology and the application of technology to improve knowledge generation and information processing: this is why, rejoining popular fashion, I call this new mode of
______39 Gagnon, & Collay, Designing for Learning p. xi 40 Marshal McLuhan recording, "The Medium is the Massage", Album Cover, via Paul D. Miller
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development ‘informational’, constituted by the emergence of a new technological paradigm based on information technology.”41
The network becomes a place itself because of the presence (that is, both the existence and force of influence) of the intersections. It is a place for collaboration and creation through interaction. As Rifkin observes, Networks are flexible. It is appropriate that they are the character of our society at various scales. They are better suited (than total hierarchy) to the volatile nature of the new global economy. Cooperation and team approaches to problem- solving allow the partners to respond more quickly to changes in the external environment.42 At these intersection points, creativity is fed by dynamic connections and spontaneity. In a discussion about the characteristics of printed text versus digital hypertext, Rifkin says, “Because the medium [the networked digital technology] is based on inclusivity and connectivity rather than exclusivity and autonomy, there is often no clear boundary separating one’s contribution from another’s. People are continually snipping, recombining, editing, and tweaking material that has been accessed from countless other sources and mediums, then combining the material with their own before sending it on its way to other nodes in the various networks they are linked to.”43 This epitomizes the condition of intersections being the overwhelming substance of our culture.
At this point in the development of the digital library it can be discussed in terms of both a physical and conceptual space simultaneously. What is a community? Where does it ______41 Castells, The Rise of the Network Society p. 17 42 Rifkin, The Age of Access, p. 23
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exist? Can a place be both the point to physically access the ‘acoustic space’ and a very real ‘medium’ itself, one that is also a full community on its own?
Realms of Learning in the Digital World Current realms of learning in addition to the library and the school/university include mass- media such as television, the internet, periodicals and newspapers, radio, and places that can be occupied such as the workplace, bookstores, internet café, various other entertainment venues, homes, and civic places. Television, radio, periodicals and newspapers are one-way media, while the internet allows for two-way interaction. The internet is very extensive, and in its short life span it has reached a large percentage of the world’s population. The networked digital realm is a highly dynamic, limitless, social forum for learning. Its strengths make it a force in the new library. It is appropriate at this point in the evolution of the library to explore the role of a completely digital, completely public library. There are a growing Figure 50: Sendai Mediatheque, Sendai, Japan. number of these digital libraries, often known as mediatheques, around the world. The word ‘mediatheque’ was derived from the word for Library. “Bibliotheke is a Greek word which, as Pompeius Festus informs us, was used by both the Greeks and the Romans to denote a large collection of books or a room or building in which books were kept.”44 The French word for library is ‘bibliotheque’, and the two words can be understood as both grammatical and programmatic siblings; bibliotheque for ‘book library’ and mediatheque for ‘media library,’ where media, meaning, in this sense, refer to various electronic media. An
43 Rifkin, The Age of Access p.207 44 Staikos, The Great Libraries p. vii
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outstanding example of a mediatheque that is a model for this institution is the Sendai Mediatheque in Sendai, Japan, designed by Toyo Ito. The objective for the facility is described in their own statement: “At the beginning, plans called for a multifunctional facility comprised of a library, gallery, visual media center that also contained services to aid the sight-and hearing-impaired. Subsequently, plans changed so that instead of simply being a "mixed-use" facility, it was intended to encompass a larger sphere of functions that would allow the facility to operate as a unified "mediatheque" with common goals to respond to a continuously changing information environment and users' diverse needs. The Sendai Mediatheque will gather, preserve, exhibit, and present various forms of media without being bound to form or type. This public facility for the 21st century will, through its various functions and services, be able to support the cultural and educational activities of its users.”45
This assertive yet flexible approach to a multi-use cultural facility is one that is worthy of emulation. The building itself is organized in a block of floor slabs that are strung together with curvilinear vertical structural shafts that contain the services and act as light wells, and that clear organization in plan and section is a strong point of the design. This cultural facility houses both print and digital resources along with various special amenities that make it quite unique as compared to facilities in the United States: It has a mixed program of library, art gallery, audio-visual library, film studio and café. Its progressive attitude towards the combination of functions and holistic approach to universal design is a model for a valuable cultural center for learning. The visibility of activities is used here as a tool for uniting the users as one community. The simplicity of the organization achieves clarity that
______45 Sendai Mediatheque. Main page.
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allows the user to map the space in their minds. The memory of their work overlaid with the memory of the space will reinforce one another. Another building of interest is the typical internet café seen in cities in Europe and some other parts of the world. Access to the internet is provided at a reasonable cost at these private concerns. They are social and functional places that have become an influential contribution to urban life, especially considering their convenience for travelers and their appeal for young people (who tend to be the most computer-savvy). While an internet café serves a great need in its role in communication, it is a very limited research venue on its own. It is examined in this context to extract strengths for the internet café portion of the Coventry Mediatheque. A specific strength is the fact that the internet café meets the street Figure 51: Easy Everything Internet Cafe, like a storefront, with open visual and physical access and minimal formal grandeur. Spain Simplicity and functionality in the organization of the entire facility, which most likely result from economic forces, are nonetheless ideal for the task of greeting one-time visitors and novices. Even the most successful internet café businesses, such as ‘EasyInternetCafe’, often house their franchises in the skeletal interior of an old retail venue and install interior treatments that minimally add to the comfort and character of the venue. Rows of computers at desks are the sole furnishings. When this function is inserted into a building that houses a variety of educational and cultural destinations, it will reinforce the specific communications aspect of learning.
Figure 18: Easy Everything Internet Cafe, Holland.
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Identity
Human nature leads us to seek both the character of our unique identity and the place for that identity to connect to a given society. What we think, say, and do; where we live, the way we dress, the books we read, the way we spend our time, and the company we keep all play a role in establishing our identities to ourselves and to others. Castells asserts that “In a world of global flows of wealth and power, and images, the search for identity, collective or individual, ascribed or constructed, becomes the fundamental source of social meaning. This is not a new trend, since identity, particularly religious and ethnic identity has been at the roots of meaning since the dawn of human society. Yet identity is becoming the main, and sometimes the only, source of meaning in a historical period characterized by widespread destructuring of organizations, delegitimation of institutions, fading away of major social movements, and ephemeral cultural expressions.”46
Our identity, both collective and individual, is a fluid being that is governed by communication. The connection we make with one another in our various activities, and with our surrounding environment, then, are our culture. “Symbolic communication between humans, and the relationship between humans and nature, on the basis of production (with its complement, consumption), experience, and power, crystallize over history in specific territories, thus generating cultures and collective identities.” [Sic]47 The search for identity is a lifelong process. Changing social forces in Western society have altered the manner in which we define ourselves. “Where people once found
______46 Castells, The Rise of the Network Society p. 3 47 Castells, The Rise of the Network Society p. 15
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themselves bound together by social institutions and formed their identities in groups, a fundamental characteristic of life today is that we strive to create our own identities. It is this creation and re-creation of the self, often in ways that reflect our creativity, that is a key feature of the creative ethos.”48 Bernard J. Baars of the Neurosciences Institute states, "Our experiences-that we sense and live, and our every interaction with the natural and built environment play a role in constructing our identities and social contexts.”49
Place and Placeless-ness
The invisible stream of communication is placeless. We can now access information in any place we choose, most significantly with cellular telephones and hand-held or laptop computers. Their roaming capabilities sever ties with sources of power and physical bodies of information. "The internet is today's street." 50 It is occupied like physical space. Another aspect of placeless interaction is the increasing capability for individuals accessing the internet from home with great speed and clarity. Their location does not affect their choice of internet activity. Likewise, they can access one of the many digital libraries that exist on the public domain. This alone is a dramatic result of the digital network. Anyone who can afford a computer, electricity, a telephone or broadband connection, and an internet service provider can participate in that placeless community. Information is not bound to geography or to
Figure 19: Placeless access can be both a benefit ______and a detriment to learning. 48 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p. 7 49 Baars, Bernard J. “A Prefrontal Hypothesis of Fringe Experiences: Exploring Phenomenology with Brain Evidence*”
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institutions or to buildings. We must remember, though, that every point of access has a piece of earth attached to it. A user might be working on a laptop computer in a wireless habitat such as a campus green space. She or he is still a part of a unique place, even if there is not a piece of architecture, per se, that they are occupying. As Paul D. Miller describes it, “The "nomadic culture" is moving through "the real and the information environment at the same time.”51
‘Place-ful’ people: The body and the community
Even with the opportunities for complete independence from stationary resources, the place one occupies is a fundamental force in one’s life. Corporeal weakness makes shelter, environmental controls, and materiality important to control. Communities are also the environment which our bodies occupy. A community exists wherever people are present together, whether their tasks or purposes are congruent or antagonistic, or indifferent. It is of a specific place and time and by the cultural forces that play out in its periphery and in its realm. “It’s often been said that in this age of high technology, ‘geography is dead’ and place doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing could be further than the truth: Witness how high-tech firms themselves concentrate in specific places like the San Francisco Bay area or Austin or Seattle….Creative people…cluster in places that are centers of Figure 20: Students interact in the public atrium space creativity and also are places where they like to live. From classical in the Peter Eisenmann-designed Aronoff Center for Athens and Rome, to the Florence of the Medici and Elizabethan Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati.
50 From a lecture by Paul D. Miller. At the University of Cincinnati, October 2002 51 From a lecture by Paul D. Miller. At the University of Cincinnati, October 2002
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London, the Greenwich Village and the San Francisco Bay area, creativity has always gravitated to specific locations.”52
In reference to Hollywood, one of the most significant creative communities in the world, Florida says, “Perhaps the most salient point is that Hollywood is a place. Business gets done because creative people congregate there, network with one another and are readily available…The real economic sense…is that places have replaced companies as the key organizing units in our economy.”53 Learning has happened formally in schools and libraries throughout history. But in a school, learning is limited to those of a specific age or economic status. Learning also happens in a corporate environment, but the office worker’s time is meant to be spent on work, and their activities, especially internet activities, are monitored. The other primary location of digital access is the private home. An individual using the internet from home for recreation or production of some work has all of the links of the digital world at their disposal. This is enough for certain activities, but cannot replace the support that is possible in a public library when the activity may move beyond use of the internet for chatting, or idly exploring the internet. A public library can transcend these boundaries. The social nature of the digital library will compound learning. It will become an experience in itself, where the writings, films, and other creations of peers can be displayed in the physical space, while the infinite amount of work from the rest of the global digital community can also influence an individual.
______52 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p. 6-7. 53 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p. 30
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Other examples of dynamic learning happening in semi-organized venues include MIT’s Media Lab, a center for digital work at the University, where “the superimposition of virtual and physical domains enrich the sense of community that could not be replicated if students were working in isolation at home.”54 Students work there to create a variety of digital work in a range of research categories. Another institution with a strong sense of place is ‘The Clubhouse’, also in Boston. It is a facility for children who wouldn’t otherwise have access to digital media and professional who can help them learn and create using those resources. MIT Professor Michael Resnick has created a community there that is, according to “Sam Christie, associate director,…part library, science lab, artist’s studio, music studio, inventor’s workshop, and newsroom…” in which they have “…access to information…plus…the ability to digitally and intellectually process it.”55 Learning becomes dynamic in a community such as this one. Bruce Mau, a noted graphic designer, says, “Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces—what Dr. Seuss calls ‘the waiting place’. Hans Ulrich Olbrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference—the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals,--but no actual conference. Figure 21: Children getting creative at The Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.”56 The Clubhouse. fusion of creativity upon creativity transcends governments and nations, corporations and institutions. It can happen anywhere, and does, but when we use this idea as a strategy for the
______54 Lukez, Paul. “Whither://Multi-Media.(Cyber).Libraries?” in Library Builders p. 16 55 Lukez, Paul. “Whither://Multi-Media.(Cyber).Libraries?” in Library Builders p. 18 56 Mau, Bruce. “An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth”
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civic place where the most democratic, (i.e.: free, non-age-specific, open to all) form of concentrated learning takes place. It would be ideal if the library contained two main types of spaces: ‘the waiting place’, a clean architectural space that serves the same civic purpose as the Forum and the Agora. The active, programmed spaces would contrast this in their power to generate work, and directly support the intake of information and the generation of new work that goes back into the mass of networked databases such as digital ‘libraries’, websites, and mutations of those creatures, that hold all other work. It would embody a return to the model of the Roman Forum and the Greek agora, where people spent time in study, discussion, and creative works, all for the development of wisdom.
Creativity and Learning
Creativity has always been a force of change and a contributor to culture. The forces of modern society have increased the value placed upon creative thinking. “Creative people are indeed the chief currency of the emerging economic age.”57 It is a significant trend that increasing numbers of people from increasingly varied backgrounds are contributing unique ideas into all types of fields. Their work is exponentially growing into massive amounts of reference material of various types, and that pattern will inform the role of the library. Their
Figure 22: Creative expression contributes to progressive views and ideas are generating new meanings. “Creativity involves the ability to learning. synthesize. [Albert] Einstein captured it nicely when he called his own work ‘combinatory
______57 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p.28
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play.’ It is a matter of sifting through data, perceptions, and materials to come up with combinations that are new and useful.”58 Independence within the framework of a culture is the strongest platform for development of great works. “…The creative ethos marks a strong departure from the conformist ethos of the past.”59 The fact that the library is free from all biased sponsorship is a force that should support the true creative interaction and creation of works by writers, entrepreneurs, scientists, producers of fine art, and workers in any other field. In terms of the creative process: “Many researchers see creative thinking as a four-step process: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification or revision.”60 Those steps are reminiscent of those of constructivist learning theory. So if learning and creativity are linked, then a vital library would support the creative work of its users. Their exchanges of ideas as they chat casually, meet formally, and share constructive criticism would be the dynamic force that brings learning to life. The interaction proposed resembles more the dialogues of ancient Greek scholars than that of readers in a traditional library who might only learn in isolation. Both a physical and a metaphysical community are essential to the development of a culture. The physical has been in evidence in cities or neighborhoods where people find peers. “And so through history practitioners of the different forms of creativity have tended to congregate and feed of one another in teeming, multi-faceted creative centers—Florence in the early Renaissance; Vienna in the late 1800s and early 1900s; the many fast-growing creative
______58 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p.31 59 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p.31 60 Wallas, Graham the Art of Thought. In Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p.31
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centers across the United States today.”61 Florida describes the teamwork that is integral to great creativity stories, saying, “Although creativity is often viewed as an individual phenomenon, it is an inescapably social process. It is frequently exercised in creative teams.” He names Thomas Edison and Andy Warhol as leaders of an “invention factory” and “The factory”, respectively.62 The media, that is, the actual filtration material, can be the community itself. “…creativity flourishes best in a unique kind of social environment: one that is stable enough to allow continuity of effort, yet diverse and broad-minded enough to nourish creativity in all its subversive forms.”63 It follows that “Workplaces, personal lives, entire industries and entire geographic regions are coming to operate on principles of constant, dynamic creative interaction.”64 Those physical communities bring people together. They can see the work of others and provide sounding boards for the exploration of meaning. The element of the community that complements the physical is the invisible, relationship-based metaphysical communities. Metaphysical communities develop as people generate networks of peers and create friendships with others whose interests match their own, or feed off one another. One individual who illustrates the way that the creative community networks is Paul D. Miller, often referred to by his “constructed persona”, ‘Dj Spooky’. He is a “conceptual artist, writer, and musician”65 who has produced and collaborated on projects that include music, film, essays, and graphic design. The community in which he works is a non-linear, ______61 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p.33 62 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p.35 63 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p.35 64 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class p.43
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non-centered network made up fellow creators from those fields and any other that may be relevant to his work. In addition to being immersed in the rich creative culture of New York City, he communicates with others constantly and travels for research and the exhibition of his work. Miller is proficient with seemingly endless digital media which he uses for both creative production and connection to collaborators and the public. His work and the related conversations that he is involved in are the center of his metaphysical community. That type of invisible, metaphysical community is potentially the strongest forum for learning, especially when it is punctuated by physical forums that ground the community in a time and place. It is a current manifestation of the same type of community that existed in the academic community of ancient Greece, where dialogue, creation, and presentation of work are the fuel for the culture.
65 Miller, Paul D.
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The Proposal
Even as networked digital technology allows for more sophisticated methods of information storage, access, communication, and creation of new works, it remains true that people are the strongest element in, and medium of, their own learning. The strength of today’s ideal library, as both place and institution, is that it consciously acknowledges people as its most important medium. The new medium of the networked digital technology stages the oldest medium for learning, the human community, in a new way. People, the oldest and most significant medium, are the key to activation of the digital and physical realms
Figure 23: The physical and digital worlds are simultaneously. An individual person in contact with others, as part of a digital and physical simultaneously present through the human medium. community, will have a rich learning experience. The mass of work begins to take on a life of its own. The work comes closer and closer in time and in their nature to our very thoughts and spontaneous words. This spontaneity leads to great things: ideas born from a serendipitous synthesis of distinct forces or concepts. So the real revolution is that the digital library is used in a way that most closely matches the cross-referencing, web-like, zig- zagging nature of human thought and research. The construction and simultaneous use of the digital and physical worlds is a form of hypertext, the non-linear route of information consumption and usage. Learning is taking place in the actual hypertext of the networked digital world, and is in physical realms such as a mediatheque where the creative community has a physical access point and center. That dynamic web of reference is brought into the physical realm by the people who move through the digital and physical worlds simultaneously. This cycle of dynamic learning is a force that generates a mass of action, interaction, and creation. Its essence is also the strongest connection to all other societies of history, where knowledge grows exponentially with dialogue. Through characteristics that
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are common to both the digital and physical worlds, the human medium can construct an understanding of space that will allow them to participate fully in the experience of learning. Cognition through visual access, evolution through filtration, dialogue at intersections, serendipity in the in-between spaces, growth through flexibility, memory retention through event experience, and clarity through organization will be implemented in the invisible and visible spatial construct in an attempt to make a vital place for learning by the human being.
“Mulling over the kind of world electricity would bring, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in 1851, ‘Is it a fact…that by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating through thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? Rather, the round globe is a vast head, a brain, instinct with intelligence! Or, shall we say, it is itself a thought, nothing but thought, and no longer the substance which we deemed it!’”66
______66 Rifkin, The Age of Access. p. 16.
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Analysis of the Design in Terms of the Thesis
A ‘mediatheque’ is proposed to complement the current branch library. It contains an internet café, assembly room, secure children’s computer areas, digital reference labs, digital creation labs, consulting stations, and various informal gathering/internet access areas. The invisible space of the digital world and the visible space of the physical world are both accessed with the medium of the human being, with both mind and body. That invisible space of the global information network (via satellite signals and physical wiring) can be demonstrated and experienced in a memorable way through formal design. The following are the attributes of both the digital and physical realms that are expressed in the building:
1. Cognition through Visual Access When a visitor to the Mediatheque enters and reaches the inner circulation loop or the very center of the entry floor, all of the major spaces of the building are visible to them. They can determine their route based on their visual assessment of what is going on in those spaces. On the ground floor, this includes the internet café, multi-media shop, casual gathering area, large group assembly room, and administration offices. The destinations on the upper floors are visible in their existence, but the specific activities will be viewed only Figure 24: Diagram representing access. when seen from a nearer distance. Wherever possible, the spaces flow together with no walls, and where walls must exist, transparent glass is used. In the late 18th century, Jeremy Bentham initiated the concept of the pan-opticon, which was a formal approach to control in a prison. Literally, ‘all-seeing’, the pan-opticon allowed for
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control by those permitted to occupy the central area. Their power lay in the fact that they could see everything.67 In this mediatheque, the central point of power is held by any individual who places himself or herself there. Access, an element of control, is gained there. When occupying the center of the ground floor and the central circulation ring on any floor level allows full comprehension of the building: to see all is to understand all. Michel Foucault, the French theorist and philosopher, examined Bentham’s work in the mid-20th century. He described Bentham’s pan-opticon as isolationist.68 The contrasting condition as designed in this mediatheque is that circulation connects the units of occupation. Moreover, those overlapping areas may be the most social and visually exciting spaces in the facility. Tom Ellis explores his theory of the route in discerning a building, “One of the essential elements of good architecture is the route – the way in, the way through, and the way out of a building.”69 He maintains that many of the great buildings of history have in common certain characteristics of physical circulation. The typical Renaissance palace plan and numerous projects by le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto are analyzed for the methods and are found to exemplify them. These methods are all meant to demonstrate “the way in, the way around, and the way out.” They include nearly immediate identification of a ‘dominant element’, as in the Renaissance Palace, where upon entering the central courtyard, “The number of floors of the palace can be seen at one glace, the importance of the varying floors recognized and
______67 Kaschadt, Katrin. “Jeremy Bentham, The Penitentiary Panopticon or Inspection House” CTRL [SPACE]. p. 63. 68 Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish, The Birth of the Prison. (New York: Vintage Books, 1995.) p.200-201. 69 Ellis, Tom. “The Discipline of the Route” in Farmer, & Louw, Companion to Contemporary Architectural Thought p.105-109.
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the destination noted.”70 Second, one’s understanding of position in relation to the rest of the building is continually being able to be re-evaluated. Visual openness and return stairs are used to accomplish this. Another aspect is a ‘Unity of Intention’ that is illustrated through the circulation path of Le Corbusier’s Maison La Roche which leads one “to the external limits of the building and then [brings] you back…he makes you see the whole of the building.” Ellis also maintains that views on the way out and on the way in are identical, further aiding in the orientation of the user. These ‘disciplined’ routes are also present in the Coventry Mediatheque, though they were not designed into the building intentionally. Rather, they followed from the parti of the pan-opticon.
2. Evolution via Filtration The individual human mind becomes the media: people are the filtration substance and result of filtration. The building is a spatial representation of and active site for information movement. Just as research progressively isolates and develops the strongest ideas, people are filtered down to more physically isolated locations. The most private production spaces on the uppermost level of the building are sized for a group of one to five people to work on a project together. The difference between the old and new library is that in the new library, those carrels are still the intersection of an infinite number of digital information streams. The learner can be in contact with infinite sources of information. Figure 25: Diagram representing filtration. Architect Michael Brawne says “Architecturally the interesting question is whether the substitution of an electronic source for the book alters the person-to-information relationship
______70 Ellis, Companion to Contemporary Architectural Thought p. 105-109.
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in a way that would affect design.” He answers his question: “Because the information source – whether book or computer – is relatively small and only has to be associated with a single person, the aedicular nature of the space remains entirely appropriate.”71 Kahn’s Exeter Academy Library, with its model of study carrels that enclose a person alone with his or her work, continues to be valid. In both the Coventry Mediatheque and Exteter Library, The entry area leads straight into the center of the building. From there, the individual can identify a destination, or linger in the center, where in the Coventry Mediatheque, low seating and open areas encourage casual interaction. Each wing of the building contains one of the functions of the mediatheque. The circulation spaces overlap those spaces for flow as people filter in and out of zones. Their movement through the zones of transition expresses the evolution of work from general idea into articulated creations.
3. Dialogue at Intersections The formal design of Coventry Mediatheque was inspired by the linear flow of information that is contained in cables or in wireless communication. Linear building masses intersect with one another, just as the flow of information in the digital network runs in an infinite web of linear streams. They are arranged to cross one another in order to express an intersection. This intersection of two distinct forms is meaningful for the usage of the spaces. Figure 26: Diagram representing intersection. As in the Roman forum, the heart of the community is in its dialogue. That dialogue can only happen when two or more forces cross or meet, either simultaneously or over time.
______71 Brawne, Michael. Library Builders p.6
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At the center is the open space, the representation of the ‘other’, as in Boulle’s library concept and Kahn’s Exeter Library. It represents the influence of some greater force other than our individual self, which may be a deity or the collective force of society. It is the eddy at the center of the flow of people and their ideas. It is oriented to the cardinal directions in an acknowledgement of its position in the global satellite network. This allows for the people to occupy that central, most important part of the building, and it shows that they are the ones who are in power there. Regarding Louis I Kahn, “…his architecture was infused with a deep feeling for the meaning of human situations…” 72 An example of putting the program “…into the realm of architecture, which it is to put it into the realm of spaces,” 73 would be the central area of the Mediatheque. It is not an assignable piece of floor for the building, but it is a key part of its operation. It holds nothing but low sod squares on which one may sit or walk between. It is capped by a plane of glass, and so it visually open to the sky three floor levels up. At the central point of the building there is nothing but that elusive ‘other’. It is the other force, the other presence, and the other thing with which to intersect. It is the only place in the building where there is extended vertical openness. It might be compared with Kahn’s goals for the Salk Institute in La Jolla, where he was “…aspiring towards a basic presence, a metaphysical state which he referred to obscurely as ‘ground zero’…this was achieved by modern means, in which space, structure, materials, and light were endowed with a resonant abstraction.” 74
______72 Curtis, William J. R. Modern Architecture Since 1900. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, U.S.A.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983.), p.518. 73 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, p.520. 74 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, p.522.
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4. Serendipity in the In-Between Place "Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line." -Benoit Mandelbrot75
There is promise in the unknown interaction of forces. Learning can take place through the serendipitous hypertext of the internet and the chance conversation or observation between strangers in a public place. When this is considered to be a valuable part of the learning experience, a vitality exists in every moment of presence in space. Figure 27: Diagram representing serendipity. To promote the possibility of physical serendipity, the Coventry Mediatheque has generous amounts of non-assigned spaces that will be activated by people en route to specific programmed destinations. The central atrium area, the circulation spaces with their intersections and flow, and the casual gathering areas adjacent to the two main staircases all contribute to the unknown factor, where nothing is planned but anything is possible. The possibilities for serendipitous combinations of people and their conversations increase when they are provided with a habitat that is public, physically and visually accessible, and comfortable, as is the case here. When there is a chance for dynamic unstructured interaction and they are also supplied with digital media that includes tools for creation, the possibilities for creative learning are endless. The conference with no formal events referred to earlier
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also illustrates the possibilities that arise when a community is given an informal infrastructure. The word serendipity describes the unpredicted development that is described after the fact, although an attempt is made here to accommodate that factor of the unknown. To further understand the word serendipity itself, we can refer to the etymology of the word as described in the dictionary: “Horace Walpole says that “this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word.” Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of ‘a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of....’” 76 Education happens in serendipitous moments; it may even be true that the drama of the unexpected discovery is a reinforcement of the learning. The intersection of a perceptive person stumbling upon something that helps their construction of meaning is one that can happen anywhere at any time. What makes it special here is the structured space of a cultural community that acts as a reinforcing medium and that is equipped with the research and development resources that will assist in developing the new theme.
75 Donahue, Manus Joseph. “The Chaos Theory.”
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5. Growth through Flexibility A digital library must have an awareness of the short life span of its current incarnation. This fact motivated a physical design that includes discrete units of open space. Discrete spaces accommodate work that requires specific environment, while the long span of the structure allows for complete flexibility of the interior organization. The interior spaces are free of interior columns and bearing walls. Only the fin walls that organize movement and contain cabling and lighting are permanent. Furnishings and treatments can be changed as needed. Each interior volume can support the expansion and contraction of the various functions, and the change of the specific function space by space. Technology and evolving priorities will guide the specific uses of the building as it ages. In terms of the entire building, the steel structure can be disassembled and the stone and wood panels can be removed and used in another place. This flexibility allows the building to exist only conditionally. When it no longer serves the needs of its users, it can be re-conceived completely or re-used as a shell. Physical flexibility mirrors the inherent flexibility of the digital technology.
Figure 28: Diagrams representing flexibility.
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6. Memory through Event Experience Paul D. Miller’s philosophy is that music uses something that is invisible to make things visible. I submit that Architecture is the complement of that phenomenon. Architecture uses something visible to make something, a construction of meaning, which is invisible. That is, it transcends physical materiality to become the stage for an experience full of implications. If successful, it will evoke a strong, positive, memorable emotional response. In the digital library, that response is intertwined with the cognitive response. Our engagement in casual and formal learning is influenced by the people we interact with and the spaces we occupy. "Education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human Figure 29: Diagram representing event experience. individual, and is acquired not by listening to words, but by experiences upon the environment."77 As society moves from a service economy to an event-experience economy,78 learning through immersion is already happening. The task for the architect is to articulate the spaces occupied by our bodies in order to use them as a legible framework for the space of the network. Both that digital and physical frameworks are the location of events that immerse us in learning. That framework for event experience will aid in the retention of memory.
______77 Montessori, Maria. in Gagnon & Collay, Designing for Learning p.1 78 Pine & Gilmore, The Experience Economy
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7. Clarity through Organization Organization is a term used in biological science to refer to an ‘organism’ as an ‘organization’, in that it contains individual “…elements with varied functions that contribute to the whole and to collective functions.”79 In this sense, a cultural center for learning is an organism that accomplishes tasks because it is a collective force. It is a being that is ordered for specific purposes. Systematic order in information storage is a constant in the traditional library. In the digital library, the order exists in the databases that exist for research and reading. The varying degrees of organization of elements of the World Wide Web make it imperative that our access of it is conducted in a place that is immediately understood through Figure 30: Diagram representing organization. simple expression and order. Organizational clarity and consistent rhythm acts as an organizational foil to the chaos that is inherent to creative research and development, especially when the World Wide Web is used frequently as a tool, as it is. The design uses an orthogonal grid to which all physical elements conform. The eight-foot repeating grid of structure and treatment exists vertically and horizontally. It sets up a space frame in three- dimensions that acts as a virtual and actual hub into which media are connected.
The activity of human learning simultaneously in digital and physical space is supported by cognition through visual access of events and information, evolution through filtration of ideas, dialogue at intersections of forces, serendipity in the in-between place, growth through
______79 www.dictionary.com.
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flexibility of physical and digital infrastructure, memory through event experience, and clarity through organization of physical and digital form. When these characteristics of space common to both the digital and physical realms are brought into fruition in architectural space, the learning process is activated.
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The Site Regional The city of Cleveland was founded at the junction of Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River. It was settled permanently in the late 18th century and the county has grown to a size of 1,380,421 people, the 23rd largest county in the United States and the largest in Ohio. The climate of Northeastern Ohio can generally be described as temperate and is classified by the NOAA as being in category number one.80 Precipitation averages 2.6 to 3.6 inches per month year-round, which is very consistent, and temperatures range from an average low in January of 19 degrees to and average high in July of 83 degrees, which is a very wide range.81 Average percentage of daylight hours of sunshine is 57%.82 Mean daily wind speed ranges throughout the year from seven to eleven miles per hour.83 Humidity is a significant factor, at an average of 45-80% throughout the year.84 The water supply is among the best in the world, with the Great Lakes supplying fresh water to the entire region. General socio-economic condition of Cleveland is stable and successful. “Cleveland is one of the 10 best cities in the United States for achieving global business success, according to World Trade magazine, which credited Cleveland's transportation, business
______80 Lechner, Norbert. Heating, Cooling, Lighting. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2001.) p.82. 81 USA Today. Weather page.
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support, diverse economic base, ethnic ties and commitment.”85 Cleveland’s “…population represents most of the world’s major religions and at least 50 ethnic groups. Cleveland, once considered an industrial, blue-collar city, has built an enviable reputation for its world-class cultural, educational and medical institutions.”86
Figure 31: Diagram of the Heights area of greater Cleveland showing cities and other notable features.
______85 The Greater Cleveland Growth Association. Cluster Project page.
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Local The City of Cleveland Heights can be described as an inner-ring suburb of the city of Cleveland. It was chosen as the site for this Mediatheque because its rich culture, diversity, and dynamic character make it an ideal community in which to build a new kind of library. Housing in the city includes many home that date from the early 20th century and includes households of a very wide range of economic levels. The population is just over 50,000.87 A range of economic conditions intersect in this neighborhood. Within one square mile of the site are housing options ranging from modest apartments to grand estates, making the population uniquely textured.
Cultural attractions within one mile of the Mediatheque site include the Coventry Village business district, the Coventry neighborhood, Forest Hill park to the north of the site, Lakeview Cemetery to the north, (site of the James A. Garfield Memorial, resting place of John D. Rockefeller and Eliot Ness, and the Wade Chapel with its Louis Comfort Tiffany- designed interior, this garden cemetery acts as an arboretum and park for residents and Figure 32: View from the President Garfield Memorial 88 at Lakeview Cemetery, showing downtown Cleveland visitors, ) and Murray Hill to the west of the site, known to many as ‘Little Italy’. The and Lake Erie to the west-northwest, along with Frank character of both the Coventry Village and Murray Hill is one of housing, dining, retail, and Gehry's Peter B. Lewis building at Case Western Reserve University visible to the lower right. cultural. Coventry Village has a strong mix of businesses including a movie theatre, fine and casual dining, nightclubs, and a variety of retail.
______87 City of Cleveland Heights.
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Cultural attractions within two miles of the Mediatheque include the Shaker Lakes to the south, The Cleveland Heights Community Center (with its Swimming pools, Ice skating rink, summer camp, and playgrounds), Severance Town Center (a civic, shopping, and business complex) to the east, Cain Park with its Theatre, Cleveland Heights High School to the east, Beaumont School to the south, and the area known as University Circle to the west. In this area, the cultural center of the city of Cleveland, is the distinguished Case Western Figure 33: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Reserve University, cultural institutions such as Severance Hall (the home of the Cleveland Orchestra), The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Children's Museum Of Cleveland, The Cleveland Institute Of Art, The Cleveland Institute Of Music, The Cleveland Museum Of Natural History, Cleveland Botanical Garden, The Cleveland Music School Settlement, The Cleveland Public Library, Fine Arts Garden Commission, and The Western Reserve Historical Society. Medical institutions there include the University Hospitals Of Cleveland, Cleveland Hearing & Speech Center, The Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, The Cleveland Sight Center, The Free Clinic Of Greater Cleveland, The Mt.Sinai Health Care Foundation, Figure 34: Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Ohio College Of Podiatric Medicine, Ronald McDonald House Of Cleveland, Inc., Saint Orchestra. Luke's Foundation Of Cleveland, and the offices of the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association. Religious institutions in the district include The Church Of The Covenant, Cleveland Friends Meeting, Cleveland Hillel Foundation, Inc., Epworth-Euclid United Methodist Church, Mt. Zion Congregational Church, Pentecostal Church Of Christ, and The Temple-Tifereth Israel. Other institutions there include the Judson Retirement Community and The Junior League Of
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Cleveland, Inc.89 Also within the two-mile radius are the other popular cultural districts of Cleveland Heights. Just beyond the two mile mark to the east lies John Carroll University (a Catholic university).
The richness of the entire area, and even more so, the people who choose to live and work in such an area, represent existence of a thriving intellectually creative community. This is an essential part of the thesis: it does not purport to create a new community; rather, it provides a public space for the existing community that acts as a year-round town center like the Roman forum.
______89 University Circle Incorporated. Our Members page.
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Neighborhood Context
Figure 35: Diagram showing characteristics of venues local to the building site.
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Figure 36: Centrum movie theater, across Euclid Heights Blvd. from the building site.
Figure 37: The current Coventry Library, branch of the Cleveland Heights/University Heights Public Library. The proposed Mediathque will complement the usage of the current library, a historical landmark.
Figure 38: Coventry School, showing playground.
Figure 39: Mixed-use building at corner of Mayfield Road and Coventry Road.
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Figure 40: Streetscape of Coventry Village Business District.
Figure 41: Detail of retail building.
Figure 42: Restaurant in Coventry Village Business District.
Figure 43: Winking Lizard Tavern is one of the long-standing attractions of the neighborhood.
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Figure 44: The mix of retail, office, and living venues contribute to the richness of the community.
Figure 45: Unique retail attracts visitors from all parts of the city.
Figure 46: Examples of typical local homes.
Figure 47: One of the unique elegant homes of the area.
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Figure 48: Apartment buildings of various sizes and vintages in the area.
Figure 529: The Centrum movie theater, across the street from the site, at night.
Figure 50: View looking north from the corner of Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard.
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The Building Lot
The site chosen is located at the southwest corner of the intersection of Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard. These two roads accommodate constant buy moderate flows of traffic in four lanes. Buildings nearest to the Mediatheque are the single-family houses to the west and south, the Movie Theatre and restaurants across the street to the north, the apartment buildings across the street to the north, the bank diagonally across the street, the old library building across the street to the east, and Coventry Elementary School beyond the library.
Figure 51: View of the proposed site, looking south from the corner of Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard.
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The Building
The ‘Use Group’ The ‘Use Group’ of this facility will include any citizen. It will be a civic institution for Cleveland Heights as a part of its Public Library System. Residents of Cleveland Heights are the specific design population. The usage of the building is open to a variety of functions. Scenarios will be presented that illustrate the many services that will be provided for the community. The hours of the facility can be unlimited. The building can be fully staffed by administrators and research and media consultants daily, and a skeleton team of research and media consultants through the nights. It will be a 24-hour, 7 days a week destination. The neighborhood of Coventry village is a dynamic one that is full of life from early morning when the coffee shops open until the bars close at 2 am. A mediatheque can bring an added dimension to that community and fit into its culture of creative intelligent social life. The population of the building in full use could be close to five hundred. Specific programmatic quantities will be listed in the program breakdown in this section. The building will only be complete when it is being used to connect to the body of knowledge through resources and communication.
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Scenario: a Moment at the Coventry Mediatheque
A group of high school students are huddled around one computer in the internet café, laughing and talking as they create a website for their school soccer team. Nearby, a grandmother is taught by a consultant how to communicate with her grandchildren via email. Another consultant works with a middle school student who is using the internet for research. The consultant is able to show her the best way to research her topic using both the internet and the digital library. When they are finished talking, she decides to go upstairs to one of the quieter computer research and production labs. She selects a computer and begins to work. A mystery novel is being composed by an accountant at the next computer. He is researching a variety of topics via the digital library, and is using word processing software to write his story. He is chatting with the woman next to him, who is writing her memoirs. She is able to create a digital file that she updates when she comes in every few days, and she periodically sends chapters to some of her children via email. She and the mystery writer discover that they are both planning to come back the next evening for a seminar in the assembly room the next night on short-story writing. She departs, and chooses to walk by the children’s area, where a group of 5 kindergarten age kids are gathered around a library consultant at a computer. They are writing an interactive book for kids their own age. With the librarian’s help, they are posting the story on a website. It can even be translated and kids all over the world can choose their own language for the story. A dad comes to pick his daughter up from this activity, and on the way in he stops to check his email at one of the digital kiosks near the staircase.
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A pair of tourists also uses the kiosks to check their email and send messages to friends back home. The digital bulletin board there advertises for a seminar that afternoon by an author who writes political commentary. People lounge on the grass seats in the atrium, talking and using their laptops. Conversations overlap, floating up into the three-story high atrium space. A couple overlooks the space, leaning on the railing and soaking up the buzz of the place.
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Spatial Requirements, Interior:
List of Spaces by Floor level Size, sq. ft. level 01 Basement Level Main Server Room 3,515 Electrical Room 540 Storage Room, Administrative 696 Storage Room, Furniture & Equipment 2,508 Maintenance Room 706 Kitchen 3,178 Restrooms 1,038 Casual Employee Area 1,812 Casual Employee Area 2,178
level 02 Entry Level Foyer, Information/Reception 2,176 Atrium Space/Winter garden 6,136 Internet Café 2,544 Store 2,176 Café Kiosk 184 Security Room 430 Maintenance Closet 78 Casual Gathering/ Internet 1,812
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Living Room 764 Restrooms 1,038 Assembly Room 5,830 Administrative Offices 960
level 03 Research, Children’s Casual Gathering/ Internet (1) 2,176 Children’s Computers 2,496 Children’s Special Events 1,640 Server Room 535 Casual Gathering/ Internet (2) 1,812 Living Room 764 Restrooms 1,038 Computers: Reference/Research 5,830 Classroom 884
level 03 Labs, Editing Casual Gathering/ Internet (1) 2,176 Computer Lab/Classroom 882 Computer Lab/Classroom 2,496 Server Room 535 Printing/Production 1,812 Living Room 764
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Restrooms 1,038 Multi-Media Creation Studios 5,830 Computer Lab/ Classroom 2,176
Circulation: Vertical, Horizontal, Incl: hallways, fire stair, elevators, etc. 8,800 per floor Total Gross 120,000
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Description of Spaces
level 01 Basement Level Main Server Room: This ‘digital brain’ of the building will contain the server computers for the building. For the present, ‘Fast Ethernet’ with 10/100 NIC’s will originate here. The entire facility will be wired with Category 5 cables, connecting these server computers to the client computers all over the building. A wireless local area network will also be in place, representing the current IEEE 802.11 series standard. Both the physical wired network and the wireless network will be updated over time. (As with all electronic transfer technology, can be expected to reach its half-life within 3 years.) The wired network is routed from this space into the interior fin walls and from there through the raised access floor to the client computers. The specific machines chosen will also change over time. They are technically just another computer, but organized in racks and connected to one another. The space for the server machines is generous. They will be placed with space around them in a glass- walled room that occupies the center of the building on the lowest floor level. The ‘digital brain’ of the building is therefore on display for anyone to see. Electrical Room Storage Room, Administrative: A rough space will be provided for storage of physical supplies and documents. Storage Room, Furniture & Equipment : A rough space will be provided for storage of furniture and equipment. Maintenance: A rough space will accommodate the physical maintenance tools and activities.
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Kitchen: The Kitchen is provided for full-service support for catering large events. It supports a small concession stand on the entry level. It is equipped with professional-grade refrigerators and freezers and generous work surfaces. Restrooms Casual Areas: Employees and others can work or relax in the casual seating areas.
level 02 Entry Level Foyer, Information/Reception: Upon entering the building, visitors will encounter an information desk where a library staff member will provide direction and act as a security monitor. Atrium Space/Winter garden: The floor space of this area will contain low seating that is in the form of grass-covered square volumes. The area is both a destination and a space to flow through. Internet Café: Fifty-four computer workstations will be accommodated in the casual area meant for internet usage. Store: A variety of common supplies and specialty goods will be available for purchase in the store. These could include goods related to writing (paper, stationary, post cards), music, art (print and sculpture), film, books (especially multi-media related and local-interest), news media, light computer supplies, learning tools (smart toys and books for kids), and communications.
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Café Kiosk: A small concession stand, linked to the basement kitchen by a dumbwaiter, will provide coffee and small refreshments during the typical day. In the case of special events it will function as a drink bar and distribution point for catering. Security Room: A security room will contain computer workstations equipped with surveillance equipment for the entire building. Maintenance Closet Casual Gathering/ Internet: In these areas, a combination of open tables with chairs, computer workstations, and soft seating will accommodate the casual interaction and casual work of visitors. Restrooms Assembly Room: The assembly Room is meant for seminars, lectures, and film screenings of all types. It is equipped with a stage and screen, audio-visual equipment and control space, and can accommodate up to two hundred people. Administrative Offices: Four private administrative offices are provided, along with a workstation for an administrative assistant. Living Room: Soft seating in a casual atmosphere is provided for interaction and relaxation.
level 03 Research, Children’s Casual Gathering/ Internet (1): Four workstations with computers and various seating environments are available for casual work, play, and interaction. Children’s Computers: A secure environment for children is accessed through a limited entry that is routed past a library consultant workstation. Forty-four child-sized computer workstations are available for learning activites.
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Children’s Special Events: An open space for various children’s events will be available adjacent to the secure computer area. Server Room: A small server room will be equipped with any supplementary servers that are needed in addition to the main servers in the basement. The room can function as a general control room and employee room. Casual Gathering/ Internet (2): Four workstations with computers and various seating environments are available for casual work, play, and interaction. Restrooms Computers: Reference/Research: Thirty-six main reference computer workstations are available in the main reference area. They are organized by partitions that run in one direction. Classroom: One classroom lab contains twelve computer workstations. Living Room: Soft seating in a casual atmosphere is provided for interaction and relaxation.
level 04 Labs, Editing Casual Gathering/ Internet: Four workstations with computers and various seating environments are available for casual work, play, and interaction. Computer Lab/Classroom: One classroom lab contains 23 computer workstations. Computer Lab/Classroom: One classroom lab contains 27 computer workstations. Server Room: A small server room will be equipped with any supplementary servers that are needed in addition to the main servers in the basement. The room can function as a general control room and employee room.
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Printing/Production: Various Printing and Digital Imaging stations are available for production of documents. Restrooms Multi-Media Creation Studios: Ten creation studios will accommodate individuals or small groups who are collaborating on a project. Two computer workstations, projection screens, and a table with chairs will be contained in a visually- and acoustically- private workroom. Computer Lab/ Classroom: One classroom lab contains 12 computer workstations. Living Room: Soft seating in a casual atmosphere is provided for interaction and relaxation.
______Parking: There are surface lots with meters run by the city that are located within a Figure 52: Parking lot of the business district. short walk of the site. There is a commercial parking structure located at the heart of the business district. The retail and entertainment venues of the business district also are serviced by these parking lots. Street parking, some metered and some free, is available in the entire neighborhood. It was determined that a parking lot was not necessary for this institution.
Spatial Adjacencies: The functions have been grouped by floor in an organization of public to private. The entry level contains the functions that will attract the largest public groups. The two upper floors house the functions that require more focused environments.
Figure 53: Parking Structure at the heart of the business district.
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Design Drawings
Figure 54: Parti sketch.
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Figure 55: Final design, Floor Plan, Level 04.
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Figure 56: Building model.
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