[...] to compose a novel is to juxtapose different emotional spaces, and that, in my opinion, is the most subtle art of a novelist.
Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel
1) Urban continuity _ civic manifesto _ modus operandi
The new Gabrielle Roy Library will be in constant interaction with the urban space. The city in general and the Saint-Roch district in particular will become a territory for knowledge, creation, doing and as a privileged community place. The BGR must be conceived as a flexible and malleable organization, an "event", a catalyst for the technoculture present in the district. The new library will be designed to assert a strong presence, with a unique and contemporary signature, more porous and welcoming than monumental. A spectacular and iconic architecture, but also sensitive and fundamentally inviting, in connection with its urban environment and Place Jacques-Cartier, to be renamed Gabrielle-Roy.
Presence _ between stereotomy and tectonics
The cultural anchoring of the site is affirmed in the public space by the angled disposition of two massive walls, delimiting both the building's right-of-way and symbolizing the durability of its cultural function. This angle is materialized by large prefabricated panels of polished white concrete whose scale corresponds to human dimensions, arms outstretched (2m x 2m). This frame turns from the square to cover the north and east walls, ensuring the anchoring to the public space. This raw material is ennobled by the insertion of polished stainless steel cylinders on the surface and by a series of luminous letters, with mirror-finished stainless steel tabs, projecting from the wall surface. These luminous insertions randomly animate the surface of the plaza and the walls of the library; seeding in the wind. This pattern is inspired by the alphabet, the foundation of our literary culture. The glazed portions, flush with the outer surface of the wall, take up the module and the pattern of the solid surface, through a treatment of fried ceramic (silk-screen printing), thus ensuring a unity of the vertical plane. These two large white walls ensure a diffuse flagrance, in keeping with the diaphanous aspect of the glass façade on St. Joseph Street. Only the large opening of the main entrance reveals the massiveness of the wall and acts as a raw architectural signifier: the marking of the main entrance.
The main transgression to the purity of the basic volume, the detachment of the large floating glass plane on St. Joseph, showcases the basic architectural devices, places of public representation of the library. Its lifting protects the exterior extension of the Culinary and Civic Life Foyers. It is an operation of "spacing", opening new potentialities to the animation of the street and the life that unfolds there.
Our work is of spacing: we are not creators of spaces, but developers of the world already there. We participate in an interior expansion. By splitting the finite world, we free it, we open it in an infinity of worlds.
Philippe Madec
The thickness materializes today by the space rather than by the matter. Between the tumult of the city and a rather calm interiority inserts an intermediate space superimposing voids, places of movement and spaces of public representation. The broadcasting room, the inhabitable bleachers, a public staircase and vegetated platforms inhabit this window. The public space of St. Joseph Street interferes in this new spatial organization. It is thus a question of producing an obviousness: frontality on the square and laterality associated with the large glass plane suspended on Saint Joseph Street. The articulation between the solid square and this glass plane evokes a blurred, changing limit, which is more of the order of interlocking, of interference, than of an opposition. This architectural expression is an enhancement of the spatial multiplicity of the library in which the intermediate spaces, corridors, landings, thresholds are as important as the programmed spaces. The flexibility and social dynamics of the space are affirmed in these open, neutral and permissive spaces; an expression of the third place.
What has the greatest effect is not the shape of the building, but its inversion, the space, the void that extends rhythmically between the walls and is delimited by them. This dynamic is more important than the walls themselves.
August Endell, Die Schônheit der grBen Stadt, 1896-1925
The in-between _ between the explicit and the implicit
The search for the ontology of the project supports our approach. What is a library in the 21st century? The historical archetype, until the end of the 20th century, no longer has a hold on the current library which asserts its social and community role and its openness to multiple uses and practices related to making, creating, and sharing knowledge, etc. It is becoming a privileged place for encounters and exchanges. It becomes a privileged place of meetings and socialization.
Its strong urban presence makes it a signal in the city. A balance between collections, animation areas and intermediate spaces linked to movement and public spaces weave a flexible cultural whole. Its great porosity and the exposure of its internal dynamics invite discovery. The distribution of the spaces, following the logic of the foyers, creates the conditions for the emergence of new programmatic crossings, favourable to creation and discovery. The library is a surprising place, both real and imaginary. It is a space that must contain the totality of the world, while preserving its mystery.
Beyond the usual architectural composition, we propose an open and non-hierarchical approach, in which the circulations and public areas are subtly superimposed on the space of the programmed places. Between the explicit and the implicit programatic is introduced the space of the in-between. Place of movement and discovery, it allows the understanding of the space and its uses and offers to the glance a synthetic vision of the space from the reception.
2) Reception _ Pathway _ Installation of an interior landscape
The reception area is a fundamental component of the library. It gives it its identity, that is to say that it sets up a synthetic vision of the uses, activities, events and other components of the program articulated in the sin des FOYERS. At a glance, one can see the information desk, the café, the civic space and the first Foyers associated with the youth. A vestibule-bridge, with a semi-transparent glass floor, reveals the bleachers plunging to the basement, as well as the ascension devices, a sculptural staircase and a panoramic elevator, giving access to the public area of the broadcasting room suspended on the floor. This room is recognizable by its acoustic fabric-covered envelope. Public activities can be held outside of the library's access hours. The reception area participates in the extension of the public square and the street; it is treated as an interior urban space.
Kaleidoscope _ definition of a new place: the Agora
The agora, a large interior void, materializes a movement in ascending tendril. The originality of this program consists in showcasing the internal vitality of the Foyers and in provoking interactions. The volume of the BGR is thus both introverted by this upward movement and the activities that accompany it, and extraverted by an expressive envelope with its inhabited thickness addressing the public space of the city.
The physical expression of this great device of movement is made by the definition of a peripheral space. A white and reflective textile surface, acting like a tulle, by its dematerialization, its transparency and its acoustic qualities, that by the diffusion of the zenithal light: an emanation of the spirit, in connection with the cultural essence of the place. Like a diaphanous cocoon, this interior envelope asserts itself by its lightness and delicacy. The geometry of this peripheral "veil" culminates at the top in the definition of a new skylight bathing the Agora in filtered light.
Cut into the heart of the building, this evanescent volume materializes the void, its flow and its varied activities. These blurred and undefined limits leave room for interpretation and the possible dilation-compression of different uses over time. This interior landscape, perceived from the moment of reception, becomes a referential and identity component of the BGR. A theater of social dynamics, it underlines the animation linked to the clash of thematic meetings. A series of collaborative galleries are organized around the central void and highlight the large horizontal and vertical transparencies. Together, these elements define the new Agora of making and exchange.
This virtual agora would facilitate navigation and orientation in knowledge; it would promote the exchange of knowledge; it would host the collective construction of meaning; it would offer dynamic visualizations of collective situations; and finally, it would allow for the multi-criteria evaluation in real time of a host of proposals, information and processes in progress...
Pierre Lévy, L'intelligence collective. For an anthropology of cyberspace
The kaleidoscopic effect is expressed by the interpenetration of activities and by the juxtaposition of different emotional spaces. The
different generations, interests and other individual personalities meet in a permanent forum, offering a place of debate open to new ideas. This interaction-oriented place privileges the eventful, but also supports the everyday, the discovery, the creation and the doing.
Micheline Beauchemin's work of art inhabits this universe of reflection, light diffraction and weightlessness. This work made of silver and lead threads, aluminum filaments with different gold and silver finishes, weaves light and time. A luminous work, it translates the natural elements of the surrounding landscapes, kneaded by ice, snow and the shimmering river.
Inspired by this work, the materiality identifies the main components of the place. The four main staircases are clad on the exterior with brushed stainless steel and on the interior with a resilient anthracite colored surface, in reference to the rocky cape of Quebec City. The floor of the Foyers on the central void will be made of maple wood and the underside of the concrete slabs will be exposed around the perimeter. They will receive, along with the glass railings, pictograms and a naming of the different foyers. A dichroic glass is planned for the railings to support the kaleidoscopic effect of the route.
The story may claim to always tell us something new, but it is like a kaleidoscope: each tour presents us with a new configuration, and yet it is, in truth, the same elements that always pass before our eyes.
Shopenhaur, The World as Will and Representation
The central device linked to the ascending movement facilitates navigation and orientation in knowledge, exchanges of knowledge and offers a dynamic visualization of situations, uses and events. It becomes a receiver and distributor of light in the heart of the library. It emphasizes in a natural way the evidence of the paths and accompanies the architectural walk. Thus clarity and freedom allow a great flexibility and appropriation of the place.
Like an open work, the architecture of the new Gabrielle Roy library will bring out processes; "work in progress", rather than certainties, finalities.
Coronation _ End of the journey
The section initiates the new spatial proposal. The agora, the central interior void, is remodeled in order to dynamize the views and to allow a spatial discovery culminating in a glass pavilion on the vegetated roof. The definition of framed views on the surrounding buildings and iconic places, as well as towards the profile of the Laurentians will animate the places of relaxation and peripheral concentration. This ascent ends with the Nature, Science and Technology Foyer on levels 3 and 4. A plant wall, on the south-eastern edge of the agora, invites the discovery and appropriation of this double-height space, projecting towards the distant views of the city.
3) Open and participatory project process
The "Maker Space" principle will be applied to the design of the post-competition project. It will be a question of highlighting the capacities of the architecture to evolve over time and on which it would be easy to intervene for its transformation and adaptation to different uses and events. The appropriation, flexibility and rapid evolution of technologies require special attention during the design and implementation process. We propose a collaborative approach that leaves room for the citizen's voice and for the subsequent modulation upon delivery of the building.
4) Environmental and sustainable development approach
A controlled-breathing envelope, oriented to the south, allows the recovery of solar energy in winter, and offers protection against glare and overheating in summer. The double glass wall integrates solar protection components, photovoltaic panels and allows for hybrid ventilation, both natural and mechanized.
The most obvious way to meet the requirements of green building and urban design is primarily through an Integrated Design Approach (IDA). A holistic vision and commitment to the ecological sustainability of the built environment is based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as an environmental method. The choice of local materials and low-energy processes allows us to meet the highest standards in sustainable development.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
H/BMD
2 .1.1- The proposal offers an undeniable urban presence and a certain spatial interest. 2 .1.2- The non-respect of several requirements stated in the PFT makes the project difficult to realize without a major redevelopment that risks distorting the proposal.
2 .1.3- The location of the Youth Hostel mainly in the basement is problematic for security and accessibility issues and does not meet the requirement of the PFT.
2 .1.4- The tulle proposed to cover (partially or entirely) the perimeter of the atrium is perceived as a separating element rather than a distinctive one. Its materiality not having been clearly defined, its contribution to the richness of the atrium does not convince the members of the jury.
2 .1.5- Given the numerous interventions proposed on the envelope and inside the building, the risk of budget overrun is considered high.
2 .1.6- The proposal as a whole, with its multiple interventions, appears confused and without an obvious guideline. The visual clutter of the interior perspectives made it rather difficult to understand the architectural intentions. From this point of view, it is difficult to know and protect the essence of the concept in case of a forced redevelopment.
2.1.7- The proposed walkway at the entrance risks limiting, if not stifling, the link with the public square rather than strengthening it. The same is true of the monumental entrance arch which seems to separate the interior from the exterior rather than invite users to the square.
2 .1.8- The beneficial contribution of the construction of a projecting staircase on King Street has not been clearly demonstrated. Furthermore, this action has a budgetary impact.
2.1.9- The significant difference between the budget estimate presented by the team and that of the technical committee raised several questions for the jury. Some of the proposed interventions could also lead to an increase in operating costs (decentralized administration, two-level youth center). 2.1.1 0- The members of the jury perceived little openness on the part of the team to adjust the proposal so that it better respects the stated needs.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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