Transparency

Transparency is the primary concept behind my building, so I'm going to rant about it here.

Actually, first off, let me rant about my ranting process. Always at the start, and usually throughout my design process, I write about my building. I go through my mental "experiences" with the building's forms and spaces, certain emotions I want to feel while experiencing the building inside and out, etc. Writing helps me to ground my ideas and distill the useful bits from what would otherwise remain fuzzy and therefore useless. In terms of it's effect on my final design, my building writing is probably the most important part of my design process.

So, transparency. I think this work will be (with any luck) a hallmark of the 21st century. I define transparency as a lack of friction when apprehending what exists. To put it more bluntly, what you see is what you get. Usually a person or object with this quality "simple". Anything complex or convoluted is proportionally more difficult to apprehend in full. For some objects, such as a car engine or a cell phone, this is a design requirement; lots of what is going on is hidden from view because of metallic seals and, waterproofing, the small scale or lack of moving parts, etc.

I don't believe this has to be the case for a building.

A lot is happening behind the scenes in a building, namely mechanical systems and structure. Structure can be made beautiful, and there is plenty of precedent. Mechanical systems can be ordered and painted to be at worst half-decent looking, at best an integral sculptural element to the building.

A building that encapsulates transparency should be, in spirit, like the human hand. A hand is an entirely practical device (much like the rest of the body). Specifically, though, a hand is mostly transparent. Veins and arteries, bones and joints are visible through the minimally thin layer of skin to protect the inner workings. There is nothing superfluous in a hand, a purely mechanical, practical tool, yet it is one of the most drawn/painted body parts. There is something elegant and beautiful with an unafraid, totally transparent, yet unimaginably complex form. If a building is elegantly designed and unified in it's strategies, and then left as transparent as possible, it would then become true and beautiful.

Also, the nature of this project warrants the use of a spiritually transparent building. Learning is an act of exploration, and the environment should feel as "explorable" as possible to encourage this mindset from the first few moments of approaching the building.

HOW to actually do this is the hard part. I'm thinking lot's of glass, mitigated by strong, clean structural elements fully exposed. If something is concealed, there needs to be a very obvious reason for it, readily apparent and accessible to any curious patron. Utilities and mechanical should run around like veins and arteries and be as clean and directional as the structure. Passive systems should move and change with the day, so the interior condition is variable but smart. This moving adaptability (self-adjusting louvers, for instance) has some practical reasons, but it's mostly for aesthetics, keeping with the spirit of a transparent, growing and changing experience. Sharp edges, rectilinear forms, clean cut and fully connections.

That's all for now.