Studio 1 // Final

“All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came”

– President John F. Kennedy, 1963

What is it?

It is primarily a library for Marine Biologists, scientists and researchers to gather and gain information on Microbiology, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Environmental marine biology, Deep-sea ecology, etc. It also has a record of all the research, experiments, expeditions, etc done in the past to refer to. The large aquariums and showcase galleries can be used as a teaching platform to educate the general public and students about aquatic life and its importance.

I started with a conceptual drawing to understand the systems in my building. The two main parts of this library are the aquarium tank that hold the fishes and aquatic life which I, in a way, think of as the “books” in the library and then the real books that contain all the knowledge about the fishes for people to read about while viewing the tank. When I was thinking about the entrance, I had this idea of a stair from the ground level or sidewalk to the first floor, walking up through the façade of the building.

Using this as a base for my library, I developed my systems. System A consists of two main components which are the books and the shelves along the railing of the floors and stairs. Here the shelves act as vessels holding the books while simultaneously enveloping the floors, stairs and in turn the aquarium.

System B consists of the exterior façade and the entrance stair. The façade is a patterned panel through which the stair from the entrance point to the first floor of the building runs, creating a subtle threshold from the points of exterior to interior.

The façade itself plays a very important role in the experience of the space in and around the building. The scalloped windows and long window panels depend on sunlight to create shadows on and allow light to some extent only on some parts inside the building. While exploring with light and shadow, I found this way effective in making a building both private and public. The scalloped panel in front of the tank allows spokes of light through them and they hit the ripples of the water and reflect at different angles to to create a pattern of its own on the interiors. What this also does is it allows people from the side walk to see parts of the insides of the building, mainly the aquarium, since this is one of the main components and the blueness of the tank stand out the most.

The roof of the building has glass silhouettes of fishes and other aquatic creatures so that when the sunlight shines through the roof, the shadow created on the floor is the same silhouette and since the the sun has movement, throughout the day the pattern with be changing and moving.

Solving the Burr Puzzle