URBANE PANORAMA invitingly captivates movement and program through a continuous landscape of peeled surfaces to produce a series of fluid inhabitable spaces. As there is no existing division of the site, the site is broken down into a series of rectilinear geometries. Geometries are created by the connection existing alike urban program, and then further divided by the implant of an urban grid. This grid allows for an expansion of the site, spilling over onto the vacant space on the north and south blocks.
Main intersections are kept as walkways on the ground plane, allowing for enclosures to be pulled up and morphed as occupiable surfaces, creating a continuous circulation path. The exteriors of the enclosures become an outdoor urban landscape as different library programs occupy the interiors. The direction the surface is pulled is coherent with the established site and specific to the outdoor program. The outdoor urban landscape, URBANE PANORAMA, is able to accommodate daytime library users as well as nighttime festivities.
Due to Chicago’s weather conditions, the main buildings on the site are connected underground, ramping down and up into other enclosures. These areas are not arbitrary during warm and sunny weather as they are occupied by library program and can be used year round.
Circulation through the site, both visual and physical, is created by a series of oval punctures. The ovals are aligned to create glances of the entire site and city at specific movements. By allowing the eye to reference its surrounding urban condition, URBANE PANORAMA helps everyday urbanites better acquaint themselves with the city.