PhilHood
Atlanta Public Library 2050
The Atlanta Public Library | 2050
The Atlanta Public Library | 2050
Our goal is to create a library for the people in the twenty first and twenty second century. There is nothing that you cannot view from a image on your phone or get via delivery to your front door. Today people only go to their local library if they need a book, or need access to a computer, these days will soon be in the past. To create a successful building is to create a place that people want to go to, not a place people travel to out of necessity. This idea is reinforced by the specific needs of a city like Atlanta. It has an unwelcoming environment that creates a cold experience for pedestrians and a forgettable one for those traveling by car.
We also believe that today and in the future people value experiences in the way we once valued knowledge. With the expansion of the internet and the invention of the smartphone. Every person has access to limitless information, and the stockpiles of hard copies that used to be held at libraries is not necessary anymore.
Currently, through examples in social media we use images and posts to share our experiences. Not only will the library be helpful in sharing these experiences but functions as a tool in creating them as well. This is combined with experimentation and discovery within resolution. In order to constantly create new experiences, the viewers perspective must always be shifting. As one gets closer or further away from the building, the level of detail and depth within the facade changes. With every approach, every different angle, the viewer is introduced to a new experience.
For much of our design process, we looked at the project for the French National Library in 1785 by Boulee representing the classical idea of thought, today’s time has been investigating a different form human thought. In today’s internet meme fueled ADD culture we have access to all the information we could ever need.
The building is a sensory overload as with the information it contains. Screens, projections, AR, and holograms put more information around you than you can consume. This is reflected in the textures and complex spatial qualities of the program. Flashing lights from the thousands of servers in the core, the rough cave-like texture in the rocks, the bright lights around the ramps, the dark crevices and holes in the corners of rooms, the lush green grass and vegetation of the gardens.
In the end, this library allows visitors to still go on a satisfying exploratory journey to information that would otherwise be easily gained in other, frankly, more boring ways.
As a continuation of the studio project created with Lorenço Vaz Pinto, we sought to bring this building into reality. Together we discussed materials, tectonics, and accessibility. In an environment that would make this futuristic library proud, this process was entirely digital consisting of a final video and meetings with each other and professors over touchscreens and computers instead of print outs. Despite a high margin for cost per sq ft, we believe to have brought the design structurally and in materiality to the reality without losing any integrity in the project.
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Other Projects
