THE NEW LIBRARY
To rewrite a library is to question its meaning in the face of its community, it is to make a gesture of openness, exchange, culture and urbanity. To build a library is also to give a place of belonging to this society, a place of appropriation where the user can find himself in front of the richness of our world and himself.
The library is today a node of connections to the various networks of our society. It is plural and open to all, dynamic and connected. It supports the individual and the community. It is the place of interaction between the individual and the information, but also between the individual and the community. It is no longer a warehouse of books. It is no longer autarkic. On the contrary, it is nourished by its openness to others. The library must be the support of multiple activities where all, according to their origin, can learn to know themselves and to know the others. The library is then the support, the place where the processes favoring interaction and, above all, appropriation are inscribed. Its new limits are not those of the building, but of our society. They are sometimes real, sometimes virtual. Sometimes human, sometimes natural. The creation of a place of culture and accessibility at the time of the initial project allowed everyone to rub shoulders, to open up and, above all, to root the Gabrielle-Roy Library in our community.
Today, it is with a certain humility that we must approach this project conceptually. With respect and care, in order to maintain the existing offer and to increase it in the future, but especially with the firm will to create an exceptional place for all.
A GESTURE OF APPROPRIATION
The Gabrielle-Roy Library is a major institution in Quebec City, known mainly for its innovative design. More than 35 years ago, the city of Quebec decided to make a bold move in the heart of a rapidly changing neighborhood, the Saint-Roch district. This site, rich in history - pasture, public market, exchange interface, place of deliberation, place of commerce and transit - has played an important social role throughout its existence. The neighborhood is just as important. As the scene of demonstrations, of the city's economic vitality, of more difficult times, as the seat of Quebec City's textile industry and of numerous factories, the district is still a popular and dynamic place. It is up to all of us today to inscribe the new Gabrielle Roy Library in this continuity. The main challenge here is not the creation of the architectural object, but the creation of the social place which rests on significant strata of its genius. It is resolved in a long reflection on the place and its history, certainly, but mainly on its users and in the understanding of their needs, whether they are young, retired, students or forgotten. Our approach is based on these various clienteles who will cohabit inside and outside the building so that everyone can, in their own way, make their library their own.
Thus, the premise of our approach is the following question: how can the Gabrielle-Roy library, through its new spaces, become a significant place of appropriation for the whole community?
Our answer is multiple. It is articulated around meaningful gestures that go from the urban to the human: the square, the unfolded square, the agora and the individual space. These components form a continuity, from the collective space to the individual space. They are articulated around significant elements of the historical continuum of the site: the once pedestrian St-Joseph Street, the Saint-Roch district as a creative and broadcasting space, the atrium as a masterpiece of Gauthier Guité Roy's architecture, the angled masonry elements strongly linked to the image of the site. Thus, the existing central atrium is now highlighted, luminous, inhabited, and a true catalyst for the renewal of the library. Our response is also a social response, supporting the activities of users, employees, visitors or anyone simply strolling through the neighborhood.
It is also part of the memory of the place, the collective memory of a simply organized working class neighborhood. To root the library in its environment, to inscribe it in its social, economic, cultural and landscape contexts, is to make a gesture of appropriation, a gesture towards the user and a gesture of openness, but above all, it is to define the institution as an intrinsic component of its environment and its community.
A LIBRARY DISCOVERED
The urban space is the foundation of all collective activities. The boundary between the street and the interior space, the public square is deployed here on all floors, it opens up to the community. At the heart of this expanded square is the suspended agora. The agora is the place of whispers, of diffusion, of exchange, it spreads knowledge through the whole square. It gathers and unifies. Agoras have always been the hosts of social activities, political activities, interactions. Here, the agora is the generating element. It is the place of resonance, of echoes of information, of speech and knowledge, delicately filtered in a luminous atrium. The filter allows the extension of the agora beyond the limits of the existing atrium. The dilatations, bathed in central natural light, offer various opportunities for appropriation. Overhanging or recessed, partially or completely delimiting the space, these subspaces created present an experiential and sensory richness for the user.
Around this place are scattered the more private elements, the ''oikos'', or homes, constituting here the space of the nucleus such as that of the family, of the house. These places are articulated through the network of connections that is the unfolded square, a vast, free, open and democratic wandering. The nature of the homes and their intrinsic characteristics guide their positioning in space, gravitating between the central core and the urban periphery, between intimacy and animation. The user can then, through these spaces, evolve, progress, discover and interact. The library is no longer an ostentatious place, but a collective space where the individual is free to choose. Everyone has access to the various foyers, with the central agora acting as a vast catalyst of knowledge. A presentation can be held there and the user, feeling challenged, will be able to sit on one of the exchange platforms and participate in the activity.
From the entrance hall, the user is immersed in the community life linked to the public square. Crossing the agora, he or she walks through the extension, a new space for broadcasting, reading and learning located beyond the current perimeter. His journey is then carried out via a series of back and forth between the central agora and the current envelope. Between levels 1 and 2, a reading tier, overlooking St-Joseph Street, contributes to the animation of the street, but also offers a different spatial experience to users. On Rue du Roi, suspended in the void on level 3, in the image of the hidden staircases of the neighborhood, a simple metal staircase set in a glass case extends the space above the void before bringing it back to the center. These routes culminate in the terraces on levels 3 and 4.
Like a dilation of the central agora, the exterior envelope contains the new library, contributing to its new identity. An echo remains, a tangible echo to the memory of the many shoemakers and weavers of the neighborhood, but also an echo of the internal activity. Making its own the history of the place, it dematerializes or densifies according to the interior activity revealed or protected.
This influences our view of the existing. The transformation of the library is an opportunity to continue the history of the place, to add a layer in the contextual history. Our work is then to catalyze the components of the project in an existing building transformed, to make a rereading through an identity architecture in dialogue with the history of the place. The place is thus reconstructed. The great brick wall of St-Joseph Street is now found inside. Its porticos now define new reading alcoves and its spectacular overhangs are suspended above the foyer. Palimpsest is sometimes used to describe an object that is built by successive destruction and reconstruction, while retaining the history of the old traces. The palimpsest is there. The user finds his old reference points, the new user discovers the echo of a rich past.
AN EFFICIENT LIBRARY
The judicious positioning of the information desks allows for quick and easy access to services. Acting as a distribution node, they are landmarks and checkpoints allowing employees to operate simply and efficiently. The library is an efficient library, with short paths, comfortable environments and a good relationship with the customers. It is also a place of work and exchange between employees and users. A place of exchange and culture, the library becomes a place of interconnections. Interconnections with the world, the city, the landscape, the past, spatial and visual interconnections of the different internal functions.
A PLACE OF COLLECTIVE FUTURE
From an environmental point of view, the library must be a place of diffusion and learning. It is our way of looking at the environment, a rich witness of our aspirations, values and feelings. Whether it is the design of exterior and interior spaces or systems and ambiences, the orientations in sustainable development are articulated in the vision of good design and good construction. Several strategies are then put in place and are presented throughout the process of discovery, appropriation and the user's journey. The strategy for renovating an existing building to make it a more responsible place must be based on a range of solutions, from rainwater harvesting for green roofs to the thermal wheel for energy recovery, to the integration of a solar wall or even passive heating. But where the library has a larger role to play is in the dissemination of these strategies, so each component is accessible and explained. Natural light is used here, increasing the comfort of the users, allowing a better contact with the surrounding environment, the fenestration is carefully studied in order to optimize the quality of the interior spaces but also to contribute to the exterior spaces.
Our concern for sustainable development is great, in order to ensure the sustainability of the project, but also to create an inspiring project for the community. Therefore, the project must also act as a vector of change. The library is now a place of life, the third place. Its activities are no longer limited to simple distribution, but include citizen participation. Thus, it would be relevant to extend the activities of the library to the creation of a roof garden that could supply the culinary space, and even the neighboring charitable organizations. The introduction of urban agriculture and beekeeping, while simply adapting the architectural concept, allows for the definition of a true sustainability that goes beyond the architecture as it would encompass the community.
A PLACE OF INNOVATION
Whether it is through our reflections on our social objectives or through our architecture-user approach, the innovations brought to the Gabrielle-Roy library transformation project will make it a significant identity pole. The new library is part of its urban context. It will respond to it, but above all, it will be an important player in it. It will contribute to the staging of the site and its users by offering them various paths, homes and places of appropriation. A verifiable reflection on the human condition, on the condition of a changing urbanity and on its architecture, the new library is here on the scale of the multiple and different views of the users. In our view and understanding of the various contexts that make up the site, a rich, stimulating, open project is born, where the broken limits allow for discovery, learning and above all the appropriation of a place by its community.
This is the great challenge of the Gabrielle Roy Library project, without which the space, as formidable as it may be, will not be appropriated or used as it should be.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
L/GA
2.4.1- The jury welcomes the will to preserve traces of the current building as a gesture of protection of the collective memory.
2.4.2- The functional aspect of the vertical battens on the exterior facades is questioned since they will have no use in reducing the thermal gain of the south facade in particular. It is therefore an essentially decorative element, but which would eat up a significant part of the budget for the envelope.
2.4.3- The perimeter treatment of the atrium, where we find again the vertical slats, risks to create an enclosure effect for the users and to limit the visual links between the foyers. This intervention, which has a definite budgetary impact, brings little benefit to the proposal.
2 .4.4- The circulation at the front of the building does not offer a convincing fluidity and does not seem to be entirely resolved or controlled. Its role (only open link between levels 1 and 2) through a function of animation risks to be hindered and its effectiveness reduced accordingly.
2.4.5- The proposed location of the broadcasting room on levels SS1 and RC is unacceptable in several respects. On the one hand, the foyer on the RC level, adjacent to the main entrance, risks creating congestion and functional confusion. On the other hand, the main access to the room would have to be on the lower level, which is not feasible in the current proposal since users would have to circulate in the administrative area outside office hours.
2.4.6 The conservation of masonry elements from the existing building is an interesting idea, but its exploitation seems too fragmented to create a real impact. The scattered "remains" may lack the unity to really create the desired effect.
2 .4.7- The proposal to offer a projection surface from the square is interesting, but the current location allows very little distance, given the presence of the Fresk building.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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