Mecanoo, Delft, NL, Architectural Designer

Architectural Designer

Being part of the Project Verification And Pre-schematic Design stages of The New York Public Library Midtown Campus Renovation gave me experience to understand the difficulties a project is facing at its early stages and the importance for communication between the client and the design team. My contribution: While being part of the New York team, i gathered / visualised information and determined ways of accomplishing the project’s goals. Having made some early concept building exploration, test fits and blocking plans, followed by room program and spatial needs analysis, we provided multiple options for the client. People>Books: We were challenged by the client’s need to increase the reading / study spaces for providing more capacity to its visitors while maintaining its 300,000 circulating collections within its floor area. Due to insufficiency of space, for both elements, i made an extensive bookshelving / collections capacity & floor occupancy analysis to discover potential solutions. Moreover i was part in making a physical model of the campus and its context. Lastly, having made a research for the future of learning environments & future libraries I developed an understanding about the challenge we have, as architects, to adapt the functions of a traditional library in the digital age and make it a facilitator to help us sort through the nowadays avalanche of information.