Gallery

Federico Cavalli

Helsinki central library competition
The project aims to forge a path not only to the knowledge and to the tools that enable it to expand, but also to the shared creation of knowledge itself:
Social interaction, cognitive cooperation, personality development.
The Library space is intended to unfold as a path to research and knowledge.This path may be random and slow in its pursuit of new incentives and visions, or it may go straight to the target of learning.
The Library offers visitors the experience of a long walk. The given function floors are linked by ramps that lean out of the central gap; the ramps (designed according to the Finnish law of accessibility for the disabled) are a circular way to explore the other human beings or to get to the subjects, the books and dvds. They are punctuated by relaxing corners with benches and individual workspaces.
The walk recalls the urban texture of a Medieval ridge town centre that offers the best structured example to meeting and socializing.
“Take a walk on the write side” is a learning path that leads to a social exchange; through the endless spatial views of the Library's architecture ; the library open space enables visitors to connect with the depth of several perspectives through the building, actually the depth of view is obscured by two-dimensional multimedia, in which global and multiple spatial features are hidden, for the human eyes, in invisible nets.
The building traces the Helsinki urban plan, for the density of room program, expecially the ground floor, the building occupies the whole area of competition, the ground floor is designed as a public square traversable transversely and longitudinally, leaving the possibility to close access to upper floors during the closing hours of the library, maintaining free access to private functions as bar, restaurant, exhibitions and events spaces . From the first floor the building is separate by a gap that assolves two functions: gives diffuse sun light to all the floors, and evacuates the air of HAVC the exit of air produce energy using micro wind turbines, located on the south side, in the opening of a meter in height between the glass and the floor of the terrace, the roof of the gap is a big glazing shaded by sunscreen. The north side of the library is occupied by the collection area, served by an elevator, the south side from the rest of the public functions. The facade’s design is like the line of writing running through a pile of books opened on the desk, holding out the possibility of multiple paths to knowledge suggested by the Library; the writing lines is formed by continuos windows, five lines each floor 35 cm thin, so the window is shaded by the depth of the facade's wood panels.
In my vision / version of the modification of reality, given by new technologies (computer, Kindle, iPad - which used to leverage content from other products, such as the media, rather than their creation - the instant communication, VoIP protocol, for not to mention twitter, facebook), taken in their interaction with the media library of classic materials (books, journals, microform) requires an approach in which the library serves to combine real and virtual. The purpose of this mixture is to create a communicative space in which virtual networks (think of how basic network of informational flows in the network) will recombine - and reconcile - the linguistic practices vis-à-vis. To make possible is necessary to consider the background in which these two different sizes meet, which is still space for people who produce real sense with their interactions. So that our interactions produce meaning and content at the highest levels, they need a thoughtful use of the same horizon of meaning that makes possible the same relations, that is precisely contained in my idea of the library: the culture is always a circular process.
This project aims to create a multidimensional communication field to combine the virtual networks to the human language. In this Library’s concept, culture is always a circular process.
I would therefore like to clarify two models that have inspired this project. The first is the Enlightenment idea of learning, as a model that calls for a transparent view of culture and its transmission: a controlled flow of cultural content from everyone and everyone can and should participate. This ideal refers back in time to one of the pillars of European culture: the Peripato, with the idea of a free critical discussion of a rational communication, performed by exploring the space around them: thus the idea of a communicative interaction - mobile by definition because needs people, not a person - that takes place on a flexible space, which opens the shared journey of individuals and their actions oriented to the understanding cognitive: Knowledge as a social construction.
I was looking at the painting by Raphael Sanzio: School of Athens when I understood, what was the idea of the better space for a library of the future: an endless space.