Implantation
Connecting and animating element
The main question raised during the development of the concept was: How can the Félix-Leclerc library expansion project allow the library to become a cultural hub and also contribute to the enrichment of the ensemble composed of the Place de Ville park, bordering Pie XI Boulevard, the Odyssée high school and La Chanterelle elementary school?
We believe that the choice of the location of the expansion within this project is crucial. The project must have street frontage, park frontage and frontage on both schools. It should be located on Pie XI Boulevard, while favouring access to the parking lot and the schools, in this case favouring the interior and exterior link with the Odyssey School. It should better frame the visual breakthrough between the park and de l'Innovation Street and integrate the existing pedestrian pathways into its design.
Materiality
Origami
Once the location of the expansion was determined, we realized that several "forces" were present and that these forces, induced by other strong elements of the site, such as École l'Odyssée, Place de Ville Park and Pie XI Boulevard, would have a real impact on the building to be constructed.
The proposed expansion was thus subject to the neighbouring elements; it was, in a way, subjected to them. The result was a folding effect, through which certain distances or proximities were created.
This form of origami, like a sheet of paper folded and refolded in all directions, both in plan and in volume, provides the project with a rich and varied exterior and interior spatial experience.
Spatial organization
Variety of atmospheres and flexibility
A place of exchange and culture, a place of intellectual creation and modernity, a place open to the world, a place conducive to new synergies, a place open to the illiterate as well as to the intellectual, to children as well as to the elderly, to the poor as well as to the rich, the library becomes a place of interconnections. Interconnections with the world, the city, the landscape. Interconnections with existing buildings, spatial and visual interconnections of the different internal functions.
The decompartmentalization, the fluid circulation, the interconnection of spaces provides the library with a playful environment where the user of the library will want to venture and stay. The concept of interior organization combining flexibility, clearance, openness and transparency gives a great ease to circulate and to find one's way in the building and where everyone will be invited to work, to be entertained, to stroll, to browse and to snoop.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
The jury liked the idea of creating a new, low-profile ensemble behind the existing building, with the L'Odyssée school facade in the background. The formal origami design offers a number of advantages that were well exploited by the architects, but it also imposes certain disadvantages that seem difficult to avoid. On the one hand, under a continuous, enveloping shell where each fold multiplies the variation of visual perspectives and lighting effects tenfold, the successive spaces prove stimulating, rich, diversified and well articulated to one another. The interior ambiances, the most convincing of the lot, inspired the members of the jury. The great hall becomes the heart of exchanges, effectively welcoming all library users, especially groups. On the other hand, the narrowness of the long volume folded in on itself, as well as the pronounced angle of certain turnarounds, run counter to the need for easy supervision of library spaces, especially when used by school groups. The lack of flexibility imposed by the plan was considered an unfavorable point for the project, accentuated by inadequate proximity relationships in several places (notably by the distance separating the administrative area from the circulation and shelving zones). The complex morphology of the volume also produces a number of residual outdoor spaces that would be difficult to secure, and this is exacerbated by the compression of the space between L'Odyssée school and the library. The decision to locate the extension to the rear of the existing building has the additional effect of attenuating its presence on boulevard Pie-XI, and maintaining the existing south-west façade (which is perhaps the least interesting) in its current state further reduces the impact of the new intervention on the urban requalification of the area. Not everyone was convinced by the exterior expression, some finding it brutalist, others interesting and distinctive. The perimeter of the added volume, which turned out to be surprisingly smaller than first anticipated, and the building's reduced height make it possible to use materials such as Corten steel. The inside/outside passageway to the L'Odyssée school is ingenious and fits naturally into the formal vocabulary of the extension, but some have expressed reservations about the possible consequences of the staircase and tunnel link on the safety of the premises and on the foreseeable crowds of students. The lift required represents additional construction and operating costs, not included in the budget. The project's configuration would make it difficult to expand again.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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