THE PUBLIC LIBRARY EXTENSION

Roshan Bhagwandas

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY EXTENSION

INFORMATION - COMMUNICATION - ENTERTAINMENT

The Thesis was a study exploring and conveying several identified issues, which included:

• Conservation Architecture
• Recyling buildings for today
• Linking the New and the Old (traditional vs contemporary)
• Urban Linkages (the donkin reserve link, the church link)
• Re-furbishing and establishing pedestrian orientated precincts, and how buildings would create that urban response. (creating an urban syntax)
• Tackling the Issues of Library (introverted yesturday vs extroverted Digital today)

The thesis proceeded to recycle the SARS building reusing and re-designing its floor system maintaining its integral structure and solid mass components. The facades were stripped of thier original cladding, and a more transparent facade wa applied. the facade was then layered by screening devives that allowed light to bounce into the building as well as scale down its facades. The new edge definitions were extruded and integrated into the streets to allow the building to become apart of its environment. The library's were then treated as bi-polar opposites, allowing for the original PE Public Library to function as is, maintaining its serene humble gesture to its users as a traditional library woul, and the new extension providing for a more interactive social face to the library, as libraries of today are exchanges of information. The North West wing of the SARS had to be partially demolished to allow for the Donkin link to the main road and Market Square, ideally the city. This link is then shared by the 2 components of the library, allowing for an intermediate fore court, or plaza to occur at the base of the link were public activity can occur to its fullest. The central Link between the two library's acts as the fulcrum, and is an Anterior space between, allowing for full control of the library's users.