Discovery Center Section

Children and teen Library Section

Main Library Section

Community Center Section

Site Section

Level One

Level two

Level three

Level four

Scale 1/32"=1'-0"

Scale 1/32"=1'-0"

Site Plan Scale 1/64"=1'-0"

Battery Street

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Lobby

Cafe & Friendsof Library Bookstore

Non fiction Fiction

Non fiction

Magazines &Government

Gallery

Auditorium

Multipurpose Room

Print Shop

Children’s Library

Office Space

Teen’s Section

Lobby

DiscoveryCenter Store

Discovery Center

C A p i t o l b l v d.

Concept: In an attempt to create a more sustainable environment that encourages us to live more in harmony with nature, I am designing a new public Library that creates a fusion between the built elements and the natural elements. My hopes are that by creating this fusion, it will bring us to a greater awareness of how important it is to preserve our natural resources. I have always had a great love for the outdoors so it only seemed natural to create an architecture that worked with nature instead of against it.

Boise is the perfect place for creating this fusion of the two elements with the downtown sandwiched between the foot-hills and the Boise River. The library seemed like the perfect program to affect a wider range of people, with it being a place of learning and knowledge. It had a great potential not only affect a wide range of people but the existing site was situated perfectly to have a great connection with the natural environment.

Through the design process and my research I have discovered that one of the best ways to connect the built with the natural is to allow a direct physical connection to nature through the use of transitional areas. By manipulating these spaces one can start to create areas that allow nature into the building or the building can start to expand father into the natural environment.

“How can people who are trapped in the city try to create a more ecologically minded world if you don’t know that it’s possible. A good example of how people become closed off from their ecosystems is with their walkmen or iPods. So you start to further close yourself off. You don’t want to breathe the dirty air, you don’t want to hear be-cause it’s annoying, you don’t want to look because it’s ugly. That is why we don’t understand nature, love it or take care of it. We don’t realize that we depend on it psychologi-cally and physically 100%” -180 ˚ South –

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.” -Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire-

Design Strategies: The Design of the Boise library starts to allow the connects with nature in a variety of ways first to engages the river by creating an urban edge to the river, in a city that the river plays such a big role it has no real urban edge to the river. Second the program has been broken up allowing for the form of the building to break up and allow-ing for more opportunities for nature to penetrate the built form and the built form to pen-etrate nature. This has created a better fusion and more of a seamless transition between the two. Topography also played a big role in connecting with nature with the manipulation of the natural topography and the manipulation buildings topography.

Process Spatial Experiences

9 t h s t r e e t

8th Street

1 2 3 4 5 5 6 7 8 9

2

10

11

111

2

1o

3

45

6

89

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Connecting the Built with natureConnecting the Built with natureRedesigning the Boise public library