We have seen the integration of various information through the digitalization process currently under way, the means by which we perceive and processes this data now has given us the ability to understand and deal with it in new ways, as more data is being digitalized, the question is how this is transferred into architecture in the information culture environment of a university library. Furthermore how can this affect a current fragmented and disconnected university campus?
An environment needs be created which is responsive, multisensory and utilizes tangible user interfaces. The creation of fluctuating fields of habitable spaces is needed to embraces the possibilities of the now and the future. With the physical spaces adaptable and a useful digital layer created.
The 2020 UTS Master Plan aims focuses around the ‘library’ ‘learning commons’. This vital interactive space aims to become the effective heart of the university where, the internal campus is generated from, and further strengthening Sydney’s role in particular UTS as an education hub.
A new organization mesh fuses landscape, urban fabric, infrastructural and communication into an inter-city activated environment. The artificial landscaped mesh continually changes along with the urban field that surrounds. The spaces both grounded and underground of all scales fill with the programmatic requirements of the brief. The resultant spaces are continually infecting, intertwining over, under and throughout the multi-linear spaces.
This mesh tackles hierarchies by modifying the existing networks into an urban filed environment. This strategy yields a coexistence of multi programmed spaces throughout and a cooperative logic of public and private space, with this enabling a continuous landscape to exist throughout the site.
The limits between the private and the public areas that results from the displacement of the frames which run horizontal and change vertically are sufficiently ambiguous so as to generate a continuity in which all the areas of the learning commons contribute to an expanded reading of the university environment. The vast changes in levels through the ability to drop down or pop up in multi-programmed spaces allow the exploration of the points of transmission and friction between spaces and contribute to this new urban field.
There are four structural systems that combine to generate the project.
- Ramps- used for circulation
- Underground- used for high flux pedestrian movement programs. i.e. auditorium, gallery, retail, food
- Grounded- entry points, low level movement programs i.e. chancellery, administration
- Cantilever- allows for the creation of private space, with a visual connection to the public
There are four primary organization systems to organize the interior and envelopes so as to co-exist to form this new urban field.
- Outer skin, controls light penetration on the west facade and roof
- Variably translucent circulation tube – which provides information about potential program use and the , current usage of space
- Solid internal walls – framing light and usage (six combined definitions, private, public, group, single, loud, quiet)
- Landscape mesh- creates a connection both visualand physical to the surrounding university buildings and the urban environment. Therefore becoming the effective heart of the university, .via dispersing people throughout the campus. With the effective library becoming the icon of the space and adding to UTS as a gateway to the city
