When tackling the concept of a massing model I personally felt the need to decipher a tactic to minimize the complexity of the library as a whole. Never having dealt with a program for a project that was this large or detailed, I first tried to group together similar elements of the program in an attempt to group floor levels of the library. Seeing how the site at its maximum capacity may only hole roughly 6300 sq. ft. we must use multiple levels to achieve the 9200 sq. ft. program. Taking principles of the conventional library, the program ascended the building concept with a transition from public to private spaces. The first presented public spaces would be presented on the entry level, and program elements would progress vertically becoming more and more private, ending with the adult specific areas on the top floor.

With this said the first solution the problem led me to took its form from a relation to the books themselves. The massing emulates the form of a stack of books with floors rotating to highlight certain views of the surrounding area, and a centralized courtyard. This itself creates a connection to the dialogue Japanese architecture creates between interior and exterior, and their focus upon a central point or space. The second concept again took a form of books, but rather how they sit on library shelves, creating diverse vertical forms, with a look at a connection to long narrow spaces in relation to traditional rows of library shelves. Finally the third concept focused primarily on a connection between a focal middle space and it’s connection to the exterior or surrounding area. This concept used a center space with a series of slices through the building shaping the interior spaces and tactfully connecting to the surrounding area.