Max Kuo

An extended precedent analysis of the Sou Fujimoto Musashino Art University Library analyzed how although the spiral organization suggests a gradient of experiences, the interaction of users with books and social dynamics among users is fairly homogeneous.

This proposal offers a range of experiences for the users although it is suggestive of a consistent experience throughout with platonic geometry and the same pixelated shelf system as found in the precedent. Public, fully accessible, circulatory portals skewer the buildings, instigating incisions, clefts, cantilevers, and shafts. The resultant networks and their associated shelving system and level of transparency to the sky or to the landscape offer a variety of experiences into each building and within each building. The puncture of the facade by the portals enhances the formal and programmatic organization of the library while also providing the public with new experiences within the park. By trading public space in the Boston Fens Park for enhanced public pathways that connect users to the MFA, the city, and the park, the library reinforces its relationship to the site. The divide of the river and difference in formal systems allow users of the library, MFA, and park to engage with the seemingly arbitrary distinctions between circulating and rare library collections, and the status and attitudes towards each held by the larger knowledge and arts communities.

Above: View of library from above