Final Proposal — The Big Idea Library
The purpose of a library is to…
Facilitate informal self-education of all people in the community.
Meet the informational needs of all by providing materials or
referral.
Enrich and further develop the subject areas in which individuals
are undertaking formal education.
Encourage the use of library materials and services for recreation.
Support the educational, civic, and cultural activities of groups and
organizations.
The Big Idea Library has a unique program in where it responds to all the objectives a library should meet while taking advantage of the contemporary shift towards digitalization of the library’s resources.
The Big Idea Library would feature a sculptural auditorium that has a heavy, monumental presence over the library, both interior and exterior. The auditorium would house special predetermined events and programs curated by library staff that would follow a semester syllabus. Every 6 months, there is a “Big Idea” that focuses on something educational and prevalent in todays society.
The auditorium would be used for lectures, TED Talks, Creative Mornings and other educational, creative or thought provoking programs for people to absorb.
The library would provide all the staff, digital recording equipment, and production equipment for professionally recording, editing and distributing to library patrons.
Another important feature of the library are the stacks which are located across 4 subfloors separated from the rest of the library programs. The stacks have their own internal circulation and are connected to the auditorium at the top.
The stacks and auditorium work in synchrony where all the information that is produced in the auditorium has its own place in the stacks. As mentioned before, the library runs on a 6 month schedule where every half year Big Idea get its own floor in the stacks starting with the most recent semester at the top floor. As the topics progress every 6 months, the Big Idea of each semester is shifted down 1 floor to make room for the more recent topic. Eventually, every 2 years, the library would have shifted down through all the floors which then, the information would either be sold or stored in the basement permanent archives for access upon request by patrons.
