Design of Fair-faced Concrete for a University Library in Japan —

"For those who are studying here now, I hope this library can attract them to read here quietly for a long time, to experience the knowledge of their predecessors quietly, to inspire their own inspiration, and finally, to give their thoughts a habitat."

Library Renderings

The interior and exterior walls of the library are designed with fair-faced concrete

The library was built by Tama University of the Arts in Japan to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The campus itself is located on the outskirts of Tokyo, in mountainous terrain, specifically, on a slightly sloping hillside behind an open park. Due to the lack of public places for students and school staff to share information before Tama University of the Arts, the first demand of the new library of Tama University of the Arts is to consider how to make the library provide an open public space for all people, which is compatible with the natural and human environment.

When talking about the design idea of the work, Toyo Ito said: I spent my college career in Tokyo, and I am very familiar with the city and the surrounding environment. When I was in school, I didn't have the opportunity to read and watch information films in such a library. For those who are studying here now, I hope that this library will attract them to read quietly for a long time, to experience the knowledge of their predecessors quietly, to inspire their own inspiration, and ultimately, to give their thoughts a habitat.

The design approach of this library can find a progressive relationship in Toyo Ito's previous works. The library finally formed the design philosophy of "tree", and transparency and freedom are still the major themes. The pattern of the upper and lower layers is composed of arched structures arranged randomly. Such a structure is like a row of woods on the hillside. Although the materials used are steel, concrete and large areas of glass, it feels completely integrated with the grass and the scenery of the park outside, which is contained in the whole building and in the beautiful environment.

The biggest feature of the building in shape is the appearance of double continuous arches. The span of the arch varies from 1.8 m to 16 m, and the overall width of the arch on the same line reaches 200 m. The columns and arches on different lines naturally divide the whole large space without causing visual congestion caused by large area of columns in space. Bookshelves and tables have different shapes, and the glass partition wall also has the function of a bulletin board. All these small spaces are relatively independent and become a continuous whole visually. Explaining the design inspiration, Toyo Ito said, "In order to make the surrounding undulating terrain and scenery and pedestrians can freely cross the building, we began to think about a structure-some randomly arranged columns, connected by arches, and the sloping floor extends the outside scenery into it.". Because of the design of the arch, we made the columns as thin as possible at the intersection point, which can well bear the weight of the upper floor.

In such a building, the first floor space is given the most meaning: it can be a passage for students to pass through, and it is also a public space for holding various activities and exhibitions regularly. It caters to the randomness of reading-readers can pull out a book from the shelf at will and sit on the ball stool to read. On the first floor, there is a school exhibition area, a leisure bar, a movie screening area and a reading area, where there are a wide variety of magazines, where students can read magazines and drink coffee while waiting for the school bus.

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Design of Fair-faced Concrete for a University Library in Japan — — Habitat of Free Thought