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OMA's
strategy divides the 335,000-square-foot project into distinct spatial
compartments equipped to meet technological or social needs while preventing
the encroachment of one upon the other. "By
combining like with like, five platforms have been identified and articulated,
each housing a programmatic cluster," explains Koolhaas. Because every
platform is designed for a unique purpose (parking, staff area, assembly,
books, offices) they vary in size and opacity. Alternating between these
five floating boxes spaced over the library's eleven floors are four
open public spaces (kid's area, living room, mixing chamber, and reading
room) where patrons can meet, search the Web, or sit and read. In context,
the library's shifting blocks of floors allow it to be fine-tuned to
the site's light, views, and 30-foot change in grade. Awash in a sea
of gray orthogonal office buildings and parking garages, the design
promises a complex structure alternating between transparency and opaqueness
in response to the condition of the sky.
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