BDES1020 'continuous city' <Sarah Lawlor>

Abstract

Throughout this semester I have worked towards designing a building situated within the laden physical and cultural context of Isfahan, Iran. The final design envelops the program of a theological library, chosen due to the site’s location next to a theological school and in close proximity to Imam Square. The building has thus been intended to facilitate and attract usage by two main groups: students and tourists. The design of this library was initially driven by three main factors: physical site constraints and cultural sensitivity; two possible usage patterns by the two focus groups, and an underlying theme of knowledge, and how knowledge is gained. Accompanying these objectives was a desire to create fluid spaces, and an ubiquitous concept of ‘folding’: this ‘fold’ encompassed the use of materials, division of spaces, as well becoming a tool to interweave the theme of knowledge with the physical building. The shape of the building evolved from an intersection and interweaving of two paths directed by the usage by the two target groups, which formed a continuous and linear form around an underlying and repeated circular shape representing continuity, learning and knowledge. Importantly, a cut was introduced into the design to disjoin these paths, and recreate two separate paths, which created interesting and unexpected places, including a connection to the theological school, providing greater accessibility for neighbouring students. This displacement directed the focus of this design to the combination and juxtaposition of binary and opposing elements such as an exploration of metal materiality which is used in this design both as a solid and transparent material by a drilled pattern that introduces light through the roof, as well as being used as a soft material through weaving techniques. A space formed by two intersecting circles which was a courtyard prior to the displacement, became the core of the project as a large void through the library, which came to represent a certain emptiness or hollowness that could perhaps be filled by knowledge. Gordon Matta Clarke describes the void as a critique of the two spaces that it is created by, but in this design I think the void acts as a critique on the entire encompassing program that it is encased within.