Team.Lux.Sit's Account

The feedback of louvers and movable shades is excellent and also makes me wonder what sort of light/shadows could be make using various mobiles or hanging sculptures, stained glass window desigs or window shapes. We are fortunate in California to have nice weather 80% of the time. Use that to your advantage with the aesthetics as well.
Keep up the good work.

It was a very smart move to interview the librarian! Obviously, this is essential in determining a client's needs when working on a real-world project, so I'm glad you incorporated this into your classroom exercise.

Adding a second floor is a great way to create more floor area to the existing building. And your idea of planting a tree inside, letting it grow across multiple floors is a great outside-of-the-box solution to livening up the space, so to speak. Have you thought about what species would work best in this application? You'd probably want a tree that produces the least amount of fallen particulate (leaves, twigs, etc.) so it's easier to maintain and so the library doesn't get too dirty.

It would be great to see a floor plan that is drawn to scale so I can get a better sense of how the spaces are planned. This can be as simple as providing a top-down view taken from Sketchup with the section tool cutting across. Wider angle three-dimensional perspectives would also be helpful. In Sketchup, the "camera" menu contains the "field of view" tool. The greater the field of view, the more you'll see. Play around with it and see what kind of views you can achieve. I believe the default setting is 35. The setting I usually use when creating indoor views is around 60 to 75, depending on what I'm attempting to show.

Also, think some more about what kind of materials you can use on the interior of the library. From the images of the existing building, it looks like brick is used a lot as an interior wall material, and you've incorporated this into your new design. However, you have an opportunity to use other materials in this project, if you so choose. Drywall is an obvious choice due to it's flexibility and it's ability to be nailed into. You might also consider using wood panels, aluminum, fabric, or even stone to make the spaces more visually diverse. When choosing wall materials, it would be a good idea to think about their acoustic properties as well.

I love the addition of all the glass in your project! Students would love to sit in your spaces because they'd be filled with daylight. Have you thought about the sun patterns in your area? Providing certain shading elements, such as louvers or movable shades, can help prevent too much heat gain within your library. Have a look here for some good strategies: http://tah2.org/think/site/climate

Keep up the good work, and I can't wait to see more!

Thank you ThemOnes for your feedback! We really appreciate the time you put into looking at our project.

We like the idea that a cafe is added so that students can go straight to the library without having to get lunch first. The transparent windows are a great idea so that students can view the scenery outside and appeal more to Mira Loma students. Having an elevator inside the staircase is very creative and can save up a huge amount of space. The upstairs idea with having a place to relax definitely is something students need. Keep up the good work Team.Lux.Sit!

Thank you. We will continue to improve our design by adding functional art as well as color and other details.

Keep working the process...you about to move your project to an entirely new level. Keep raising the bar!

Thank you Jon Howard for your input. Analyzing the existing circulation patterns would definitely be beneficial so we can eliminate these problems in our final design. We look forward to any other comments you may have.

Make sure you add a feedback section so you can dialog and respond to any/all feedback you get. You will be responsible for this during your final presentation Oct. 4 & 5.

Hi team.lux.sit. You've done a lot of interesting work here! You you seem to fully understand the important issues that need fixing within the existing library.

Your photos are pretty effective at illustrating some of the library's problems. I think it would be helpful to sketch the existing space in plan so you can analyze existing circulation patterns and to get a feel for where all the major elements are. This would effectively help support your rationale for how you are changing the space. It looks like you have some plan information, based on your nice sketchup model.

Also, it would be interesting to see a storage capacity comparison between the existing shelves and your intriguing new circular shelves.

Keep up the good work! I'll make some more comments soon.

Prindle18, yes we are planning on adding a second floor. Currently, we have not incorporated an entrance from the second floor of A wing to the second floor of the library; however, that would be an excellent addition to the sketch. Slides 8, 9, and 10 are what inspired us to create this design. Thank you for the feedback.