PREMISE Myths and legends are the testimony of the spirit of peoples and places’ origins, and forge their peculiarities by defending them from oblivion. In order to know those places, we have been seduced by the poetic wisdom of Väinämöinen. The imagination of our architecture that follows is associated with an eagle just landed, petrified, still with its wings spread to the wind; the stone façades are striped and scratched to the point of losing the inscriptions, deeply carved into the stone, and the question that emerges is whether they are the claws’ work of the legendary bird of the Kalevala or if they are consumed by time, some of those are going so in depth to cut slits in the stone surface – windows – that frame some scenes in the landscape.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
Although the current urban layout of the new centre of Helsinki is different from the one conceived by Alvar Aalto in the ‘50s, it happens, as well as in the myths, that his spirit will emerge when unexpected. We imagine the new building being already able to raise, with its own configuration, a recognizable role and reference among the institutional buildings placed around Parliament, and a the same time a monumentum that, in its etymological concept, was intended as “memory” that is projected, over the past, into the future.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
CITYSCAPE The symbolic and austere exterior of the building is, on one hand, detached – as is right for the role he is called to invest in the area- but it is attentive, as well, to relate to the urban fabric and it interprets this in the spirit expressed in the competition notes. The urban insertion is achieved by interweaving ‘facts’ as servitudes, roads, provision of standards, with the notable points in the landscape, relating them with the cultural and allegorical influences. Our project is the sum of those interweaving sedimentations, which go far beyond the tangible, and activate the intersections between physical and virtual space and time. In this way the apparent “closure” of the cladding is discovered as permeable and a continuum both with the city [citycape] that with the park [landscape]. In our project the future library is itself as a forum of culture, a place of excellence, a fulcrum of union between the functional, institutional, social, and the same time, spiritual role, an urban landmark, in its broadest sense.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
ARCHITECTURE The architecture’s image is powerful, intriguing, and it shows the ability of the architectural concept to interact and merge with the structural solution, embracing technological, plants and distribution infrastructures as part of the same concept. The architectural configuration emerges, as well as by the expressiveness of the cladding (coating) material, also by the two extraordinary “wings” which characterize the building. These important projections were made possible leaving the structural load of the entire building to the couple, pairs of walls designed as a joint beam.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
The structural ‘backs’ are housing, in addition, the complex apparatus of vertical connections and secondary and service spaces, a facility that allowed to dispose a large surfaces of free floors system , and through that, a maximum flexibility in their usage, as well as in the insertion of “gaps” which act as relationship’s spaces and visual cues, enhanced by their interaction with the outside (light wells [skyscape], roof gardens [gardenscape]), which is part of an internal constellation of “landmarks” that acts as an intuitive perception of the inner space in which is easy to move and orient. The technical and ecological solutions are integrated as part of the architecture, by limiting the visual impact and ensuring constant monitoring throughout the building.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
The project identifies the potentiality of mixing some different activities, when they are not in contrast, in order to bring different users to know each other, and to stimulate and approach them to new experiences, as in case of the exhibition spaces placed in the upper level, beside the Collections area as well as the 24H library, that might be shifted elsewhere out from the main lobby as all the internal spaces are going to be supported by the usage control devices for the zoning subdivision.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
- Central control room with the attached computer server room is provided, strategically located in the upper location of the basement area.
- The project provides an organic connection, with its proper foyer, to the future underground project in the park, directed to the main lobby, passing through the lower lobby of the cinema.
- The double library’s entrances, from the city and the park, intend to assign an equal importance to both; the project conceives those entrances as gates “one to the other” and the two ones lead to the main library’s lobby.
- Ceilings of the two large entrance squares are to be used as projection screen (for multimedia installations, cultural projects or events).
- Eventual art works integration in the library spaces should be considered in relation to the architectural spaces.
- Café and bookstore are located near the “buffer zone” entrance and they may be use independently from the library’s activity hours, as well as they can have in use portions of the spaces in the external covered square entrance.
- Both main entrances to the library are emphasised and inviting, designed as informatic gates, a mixture between passive and interactive, as a tree dimensional Dazibao spaces. Visitors, passing through those buffer zones, are been constantly supplied with up to dated information on the library’s activity or spaces availability, and they can leave or send their own informatic note, all in real time.
- Lobby and lounge areas* are designed and located to be easily remodeled, eventually some portions of those spaces might be in part rented, for commercial use.
Flexibility of workshop space is guaranteed by the enclosures, being most of them free standing, modular, and located near to vertical or horizontal connections. The different materials of the walls guarantee the specific quality needed, the possible variations are: a_ glazed (either with normal, variously transparent or an innovative active glass), b_ non transparent (with different heavy duty acoustic insulation where needed).
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
- Electronic and “light barriers” allow zoning – a fragmented usage of spaces, as for example in different hours of the day.
- Restaurant and Sauna are placed in a strategic location, facing the park and the “internal gardens”. They are also served independently, with an internal dedicated lift for public and with an external heavy-duty elevator.
- Cinema and multipurpose hall are conceived as a combined system that can have detached or related activities, the project preserves the eventuality, if required, to become, occasionally, a unique performance hall with a central stage.
- Multipurpose halls’ backstage and storage (in part located under the stage) are connected directly to the Töölönlahdenkatu street level by an elevator.
- The façades’ stone cladding and of some interior surfaces (which can be reasonably considered into the prevented construction costs of the building), is of a mayor importance to our architectural conceptual idea, never the less, it corresponds to the requirement of the program asking to assign a monumental and timeless perception and qualities to the future library. The implementation of such cladding is going to be an object of careful studies, due also to the rigid climate condition of Helsinki.
The longitudinal west and east façades, although they seems to result blind, are going to have a skilfully punctured cladding which forms “targeted windows” offering selected views to particular and relevant elements in the city and the landscapes around (focusing on relations to some of the libraries sections as: Art-museology/Kiasma, Democracy-Political studies/the Parlament, Music/Helsingin musiikkitalo/Finlandia, Urbanity, Nature etc…)
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
- The book handling is conceived as a vertical system, all the operations relating the handling are aligned from the basement to the upper floor, and connected through a dedicated ‘book elevator’, a staff lift and a dedicated service staircase.
- Roof is to be associated with an ‘hortus conclusus’ which offers different qualities of green courts on different levels, together with the skylights, as an integrated system of ‘hanging gardens’ which bring “the feeling of the exterior” and light depth into the library.
- Privileged connections and areas are reserved for staff.
- the general services concentration into the double walls (as information, client service, wc) contributes to an intuitive orientation of the visitors in the library’s spaces;
- the system allows a harmonious distribution of the services along the whole lengt
- Except the central “monumental” escalator system, the various and different vertical connections are concentrated through that structure;
- Due to that system, no technological passage is needed inside the library’s spaces.
- The external exit from the underground public parking is protected under the south covered square entrance and beside the drop-off area. It’s also integrated in a decorative water pool. The defence shelter is located under the footprint and the fire water reserve is located in between.
- The project integrates the existing (or programmed) pedestrian and bicycle routes. The bicycle parking is assigned along the east façade of the library, symmetrically and between the “gates” to the building.
N.B. In the double wall buffer volume concept are individuated important energetic saving benefits. Those benefits reveal other potential advantages that are going to be, eventually, extensively studied in the second phase.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
The proposed architectural solution suggests the use of traditional construction systems as the reinforced concrete; however, by employing innovative products (as the Self Compacting Concrete SCC the termal/acoustic high-performance, or the new mixtures regarding high resistences types especially concerning our case) which are, ecologically friendly and contributes, by the improvement of the productivity, to a considerable reduction of construction costs.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.
© P&M palterer medardi architecture srl . Published on June 20, 2013.