A Master Class with Sir David Adjaye

hello and welcome to a special webinar presented by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce in Winter Park Florida welcome whether you're watching us on Zoom on Facebook live or after-the-fact on youtube or at our website at winter park org we know that we have a full house today and I'll share with you that we are at capacity on our zoom audience but I encourage you to watch this on Facebook live and also to take a moment to share it on your page so that we can spread the word about the incredible vision for this new addition to Winter Park I would like to get us started by introducing the president and CEO of the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce Betsy gardener effort good morning Amy and thank you I want to thank our team for getting all of this organized today and just to frame why we're here the chamber of commerce exists to convene people and ideas for the benefit of our businesses and our community and when we think about the intersection of community and business and opportunity today I can't think of a better person to speak to this thing's Sir David O'Shea it is my absolute privilege to introduce him Sir David O'Shea is a Ghanian British architect who's received international acclaim for his impact on the field he was born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents and his influences reign from range from contemporary art music and science to African art forms and the civic life of cities in 2000 he founded a Jay Associates which today operates globally with studios in Accra London and New York with projects spanning across the globe known for his ingenious use of materials and his sculptural ability David O'Shea has established himself as an architect with an artist sensibility and vision his projects range from private houses bespoke furniture collections product design exhibitions and temporary pavilions to major art centers Civic buildings and master LJ's largest project to date the National Museum of african-american history and culture in Washington DC opened on the National Mall in Washington DC in 2016 and it was named the cultural event of the year by the New York Times in 2017 ah Jiang was knighted by Queen Elizabeth ii and was recognized as one of the 100 most influential people of the Year by Time magazine in addition to the National Museum of african-american history and culture selected works include the Webster in Los Angeles a new flagship retail space for the luxury multi brand retailer Ruby city a new Art Center in San Antonio Texas the Sugarhill mixed-use development in Harlem New York two neighborhood libraries in Washington DC the Elora concept store in Lagos Nigeria the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver Colorado the Ethelbert Cooper gallery of African and American Art in the Hutchins Center at Harvard University the Nobel Peace Center in on flow and the ideas stores two community libraries in London it is a rare and singular privilege to have David Asha with us this morning David welcome thank you for spending time with us you are in Ghana now and you have three offices across the world you have an office in Ghana and I'll cry and then also New York and London is that correct and you really bring this kind of global literacy to everything that you do so I think it's relevant that you all are operating with a global footprint that's one of the exciting things about being able to connect to this project in Winter Park the hyper locality and the global piece of it coming together as Orlando becomes a more and more global destination this is an exciting time so we want to kind of frame the type of work that you do and and I've studied a little bit about you in preparation for this and one of the things that really strikes me about the way you approach this work is the role of narrative and that you approach were with this sort of ambition to build transformational narratives can you talk a little bit about your process and about this intersection of civic and cultural work being at the core of your practice potential had the power to frame the social context and to edify and empower communities in profound ways then I had previously thought and in realizing that then studying architecture I realized that I wanted to practice as much as possible in the public realm and to be is the most democratic arena to inspire and influence the greatest amount of people for me architecture is one of those beautiful art forms that continually has to be remade continually has to be refined for every generation it's not so we just made one architecture then that's it it has to be recalibrated and so this really is at the heart of why we work and the idea of really making sure that we are bringing as much knowledge into the experience of architecture is central to how make myself my studio work we work we use you know the knowledge that we know from working in the u.s. the knowledge that we know from working in Europe the knowledge that we know and use working in Europe to try and create a diversity in our knowledge base that really gives the most exceptional we believe products to our clients and to our communities well in reflecting on some of the work you're doing now kind of indexing that against the work of like a frederick law olmsted who use design to create these democratic opportunities for socialization it seems to me like you're using design to kind of reactivate public life and create these public realm opportunities we've got a lot of discussion obviously going on in a painful time in America right now about democratizing and making equality of opportunity can you talk a little bit about that part of your work and how that sort of activates a lot of your thinking in your process a lot of the initial work and still at the base of the foundation of the practice is to make visible those forces communities institutions that are invisible in our world and it's not the formal structures but it's the idea of understanding that as citizens in any community you sort of enter a contract to be good to each other to be supportive of each other and that means that there is your private role in your house which is your private realm but your there is your public role and that's your you know the things you do you vote you act on things to kind of create identification opportunities for yourself and for the generations that are to come after you so we are sort of custodians not just of the world that we live in the way we want to say for ourselves but also custodians of making in the future for generations who haven't even been born yet so this this is a critical crux of this sorry bit to you I can see you want to say something no I don't I want to hear from you but I think you know this is very inspiring this is sort of an academic way to begin talking and we're gonna get to the process with specific focus on the Winter Park Library but I want to take everybody on this journey of how you how you approach the work how you think about the work and what makes you interested in tackling civic buildings which are themselves thorny beings this is a difficult thing you're managing by committee you're you know there's a lot of stakeholders we've got public bonds that are funding these things these are difficult processes and these are this is really the path of most resistance I would seem to me in architecture is to engage in these public spaces what is it that makes you excited about doing this work because we know you do quite a lot of it when you've got a huge list of celebrities who want you to build homes for them you're you know working on these types of projects instead and I'm really curious about what drives some of the passion for you so what drives that action really is this idea of a civic duty yes I can work what you know I could choose to work much more in the commercial sector which is you know very very clear sort of parameters but I am as I said in the beginning I hope you see that I am interested in architecture as a story of our time and I think that you can't you know underestimate how much the public institutions of the public structures that we make in our cities so which is being contested and discussed in America not just America around the world right now the things that actually represent the world that we live and so this idea of even though they are the hardest contested areas and we know that they are you know we don't do it for the money we do it because we love it and we believe absolutely in in the ability to transform those institutions to then make a better world that we all want to be so you know it's it's it's it's taken very very seriously you know I always say in my studio yes you know I'm an employee but you're sort of entering a sort of vocation in the world and wants a certain quality that actually brings benefit to everyone and and passionately believe that in that equality and in that breeding that everyone we actually make a much much better world that we can if we don't do that and it's not a statement to believe so so this this way of working and trying to kind of navigate how to create spaces that are democratic across all members of society all genders disenfranchised as well as you know those that are very fortunate is really a critical thing that we're always shifting and and what's really amazing is that in the history of architecture this idea of democratizing shifts and change changes you know in the 18th century it was about making palaces for everyone it was about introducing Greek temples as symbols of knowledge you know that was the 18th century because we're moving from a kind medieval period a renaissance that happened in Europe and a certain sense that that was an Enlightenment that needed to happen around the world to kind of quote history but those those symbols are very important historical models but mean different things now they start to kind of form different messages so we need as architectures as we transform the world in the 1800s in the 1900s in the 20th century at the beginning of the 21st century here we go again the world is shifted we have new technologies we have new ways of making visible our publics and our relationships to each other we actually have now global connections where we can do a talk across a crowd London the world I mean we are in a new space and that requires that our environments also have to I think remake themselves to make sense those that are precious to us that really have made sense can be kept but those that don't make sense have to be remade because we continually have to profess this idea that we've all chosen to be part of which is this civilization called human beings right David I've heard you speak about with specifics on the library piece that we want to move this stack of shelves kind of ethos this knowledge box ethos where we think about a library as a repository of knowledge and you will buy technology in that intersection of architecture and technology you know we're the chamber of commerce so we drive people to the library so they can learn new skills virtually they can go in and use free Wi-Fi and upskill on proprietary databases that our library has are people that were driving over there we're trying to help them be entrepreneurs through their use of the library and that's our focus is a pro-business organization so we'll be aligning with that part of the libraries programs very heavily and so I love as we're having this national conversation about the Equality of opportunity the role that a library can play in allowing someone to copy a business plan learn some Excel skills all the kinds of things that can help you move up the sort of social mobility ladder and does that create an activation point for an entrepreneur etc so we're really interested in discussing with you this process because I think it's amazing that we're at this place a little tiny Winter Park Florida where we're attached to globally leading thinking about how we should be perceiving the role of a library so this is a wonderful opportunity for this intersection of technology and architecture to activate civic spaces can you tell us a little bit about your process there and what that looks like and then we're gonna do a deeper dive into just some libraries and look at what you've got planned for Winter Park is really punching so high up because really what is happening with the project I think is so powerful is that another prototype another version of what the library has evolved already in the last 20 years is being tested right in Winter Park and what I mean by that is that the library as a campus of knowledge so we're moving from the object building or the kind of what I call the kind of infrastructure of knowledge to the space of knowledge and that is really what we're trying to prototype in winter because of the opportunity of the scenario we're making a space where knowledge is knowledge and community facilities are being brought together in a cluster to make a sort of little village a hamlet of knowledge this is so unique I don't know anywhere short of a library on campus or a university when that kind of clustering of knowledge in the public realm has happened and that's why I'm so excited about what's happening in Winter Park this idea of this space of knowledge where a public citizen can come have events learn be educated edified in some form be a business person or just find out about what's going on in their community or what's going on in the world is going to become a model that's going to become more and more ubiquitous and I think that what's happening in Winter Park cannot be underestimated it's really for me what's powerful about what we are all doing there as as as architects and as client as as community it's a very beautiful triangle of makers supporters community to create this project and David I'm curious have you worked in Florida before because I think this is a quite unforgiving habitat and so I wonder if this was part of the challenge for you to to work in a hurricane zone to work with some of these unforgiving you know pest management issues all the things that are gonna threaten the integrity of the structure was that appealing to you yes Florida is a very important stage in America growing it's it's really one of the kind of states that's also growing rapidly so just be able to work there for me is incredible and to be able to use and test our architecture within those challenging conditions is very important there's a fantastic pedigree of building architecture in that environment and you know with our partners we are learning a lot about how to build the right building and we now feel very confident about what we're proposing and so it's it's been a wonderful challenge but also a learning curve for us and all that fun hurricane code you get to hear I'm gonna share with you when I showed my 20 year old son who is a bit of an architecture buff I showed him the design for the library and he he really exclaims words that I can't repeat in polite company or on this so engaged with what you designed he really felt that it it really spoke to him as both a global citizen and a native of Florida and it became that kind of realization point of what I've heard you talk about where you want young people to come to these libraries more than they go to Starbucks right so so don't look at this and to have a 20 year old man say something I can't repeat here maybe later I'll tell you what he said but it was really just he couldn't believe anyhow since that immediate civic pride and I've heard people talk about going in certainly to the National Museum of african-american history and culture and that reaction that moment where people stand up a little taller they behave in a little more sublime way because of the way the building is now informing their experience and calming them to maybe a different mode of being and and I really love the way you've reflected that kind of unique Florida experience in this design can you talk a little bit about some of the details that made this a Florida contextualize building obviously mitigating you know in terms of the structure being able to deal with hurricane proofing etc dealing with you know things very simple like just termite proofing and worrying about the ground condition learning to really create shade using the building to design and in that and in a nightshade learning from the history of sort of the architecture of the region but creating a new form that really parametrically kind of creates a singular system that is both shade and form at the same time and also learning about durability of materials so the materials that will perform a certain way and others that just won't be able to cut it and we went through a trial of things and you know we were just really good partners to help us make sure we made the right decisions you probably had to answer the question where does the water go more than one or two times right to the building and creating shade exactly it's I'm really curious about some of the vaults that you've designed and if you could speak some of that it would be really helpful you know it's sort of interesting it became very fascinated by this idea of bolting spaces as a way to differentiate it from sort of flat commercial cases which are very functional and very much about you know utility and just kind of doing the best efficient things which you see typically in office buildings we wanted these buildings to have a certain kind of distinction in their profile that would really signify to anybody entering that this was a special room for the community I also was very much inspired by the mission styles that I was seeing also in the history of Florida that kind of you know the art architecture arcade architecture port architecture in some of the civic buildings that I saw and so this idea of creating a series of rooms where I'm calling public rooms that really will make people feel that they are in something that's for them but something that's different to going to a shop or to a commercial office space it's something that's about their civic role and their control just the signature of just doing that I think will actually shift the way in which people see the spaces and use the spaces in a very dramatic way I think that you talk to people now when you talk about a vaulted space or not space they think of ruins only maybe it's a trip to Italy or somewhere like that or an old cathedral or something like that and we wanted to bring incredible audacity of those buildings and their beautiful sections to create these beautiful shapes into something as every day is we believe alive we should be it should be as everyday as just going down to use the park it should be that infrastructure that really supports the way in which you grow in your community or you mature a new community or you contribute to your community and it becomes an infrastructure that really is there to help so let's talk a little bit about the siting of this library in MLK Park and a Harvard panel discussion it was brought up that a lot of streets were named MLK Way Avenue whatever throughout the United States and that naming process lacked vision and so the way we really wanted to honor that man who transform culture in the United States wasn't fully realized because there wasn't a contextual vision for that Street one of the things that I think is impressive about the opportune that we have here is the libraries being built in the westside of Winter Park which was unfortunately designed as put the black side of Winter Park when it was built and we have a chance to rewrite our narrative in Winter Park as this Democratic space that might activate MLK Park with a full contextual vision can you talk a little bit about that the opportunities there because of the history that you just mentioned and this idea of being able to place you know MLK actually Luther King I love the way we just abbreviated his name and it's so ubiquitous and everything goes who ever gets one Luther King really you know was very much about the empowerment of communities through knowledge through you know sort of emancipation of your conditions through the the access to knowledge and the connection to to knowledge as a way to kind of empower yourself so in a way we're sort of building a monument to his ideals of being able to democratically give all citizens very good infrastructure very good knowledge access very good community support great spaces to listen to discuss to debate as you can see the building not only just sits on the corner but it also sort of cascades to the water's edge we want to bring people right to this beautiful asset of this park and to be able to bring people right to the water's edge and to be able to have amazing performances so you can imagine on this platform that we put on the water an amazing concert or amazing poetry reading or an event or a wedding or beautiful you know baptism whatever it might be that really allows you to be in the public space and to enjoy this asset which is created for the public so you know this is the the space is really for me you know you know and that's when we were kind of making it I really resisted this idea of making a singular building but it was this under this inspiration of being able to create much more than a single sort of large building but a broken campus a village a little hamlet of knowledge seemed to me like such a beautiful way to kind of celebrate what this transformation is going to be on this very site I think libraries and community facilities that probably one of the few things you know museums libraries sort of public communities one of the few things that are allowed to be in public spaces like parks because they enhance and complement the park you know you have an interior interior much about a relationship to public life and you have an exterior origin which is about the new calling and the beautiful so for me they are perfect bedfellows and how we make cities and I love some of the playful features that you've designed into little nooks you put in children's library areas and things like that I want to hear from you about your vision of what might go on inside these buildings we heard about the outdoor spaces which really are not spaces that are used to their full potential right now in Winter Park so we're gonna get a an almost algorithmic uptick and relatability to this space that we've never seen before and so it's so exciting to think about the compounding nature of all this activity really focused on this one corner in Winter Park but I've heard you speak about libraries as a place where people can be doing yoga and meditation aromatherapy classes what's your vision for what might go on in these places give us some ideas if you will so I some of the things that have been discussed with the library team and the city is really that not only is it library stacks but it's digital services it will have maker spaces you know there's technologies already exists in the existing library and it's going to be upgraded so you can come and sort of do things here you can have incredible events where robotics are being shown in this image we talk politics kind of events happening here so you could have many technology conferences or product launches etc that can happen here you also have one-to-one teaching spaces public forum that can allow for debates and and and lectures I would I can't wait to come and give it when we finish this building to the community so that we can actually you know the community can engage with people in a very direct way there are spaces that will allow more focused learning to happen or engagement and interview so we move from everything from two to four person spaces right through to a 50 person spaces that can combine 25 and 54 spaces that combine but we also have traditional books because we realize the importance of reading and the book is you know people thought that the internet was going to destroy the book but actually we know that books are very important physical act of spending time consuming knowledge so books are also very important they're on display but also all these other services that support you know for me more than just a library of a kind of community infrastructure right here so this is maybe one of the teaching labs which look at different kind of computing lessons that can happen teaching older and younger generations this is not about just young people but allowing all the generations to be able to learn skills if they feel left out that the library is a very easy place to go and learn without going into some kind of formal school structure or that they could be very advanced technology being learned by so cutting edge sort of as it were kinder diving and training other kids and students who might be wanting to learn about those things in this environment so it really is for me these kind of overlapping infrastructures that we now need in our communities it's it's teaching spaces it's intimate spaces it's learning spaces it's community spaces its immense spaces it's spaces that gather and it's spaces in between nature and the urban is edges to feel protected but to be able to see the world and to look at your city in a different way for instance if you're able to go up to the top of the building and really see for the first time as a public that Park in a new vantage point I'm sure most people don't have this view except for the offices that are close by and this will soon be a public view that you can go up to and having these few points in these vantage points just embolden people and elevate people about their community in their space and wanting to be part of it contribute and David I don't think you get a reputation like yours without being a bit of a provocateur so you're used to some critics and criticisms of this project is that we don't have as much shelf space as some people might have imagined that we have and my familiarity with the project really has guided me to an understanding that we don't want as much shelf space as we had before because we really want these flexible rooms that can accommodate I saw you built-in you know wheelchair access to the raped auditorium you know that we've got the ability to really flex and use the spaces in a way I know college kids likes to sit on those sort of graduated steps and study and maybe those are some of the visions there can you speak to this notion of shelf space which seems a little bit outdated and why these spaces are more programmatically flexible I've been working with libraries for 20 years now and the evolution I mean the Internet has been a huge on the way in which we do see libraries libraries post-war we're about as many books as you could into every community to empower and edify and academic libraries which were universities etc I wrote about having the backpack slots but a community library is very different it's about having the essential things that support those communities in the right concentrations but it's also about offering all the opportunities that the sort of ritual of going to a library is now afforded communities it's where you go find out about all the other things this way you do lifelong learning it's where you have flexible spaces for teaching programs you know and also just spaces that are differentiated you're just being hushed at a desk you know which shelves all around you that traditional image of the library you want kids be able to sit on the floor sit on steps be outside on the Wi-Fi working and thinking about ideas that's how we are now working in our world so we want the likely to reflect that so there's no agenda to in any way reduce the volumes there the agenda is to be efficient and to be compact and to display where we need to display and to have spaces for all the other things that enrich the library experience and the books are there so you can have the books it's not about you know people always mix the idea of an academic like university library the community library they're very different things well and I'd love to talk about the role of some of these iconic plastic features you've put into library design like the curved shelving and if there's possibility to put an example of that up on the slides right now it'd be great to see how transformative that curved shelving is it makes talk about what happens when you put some curved shelving into a library space and how that activates his face in a different way than maybe it had been before yeah I think you're talking about the idea store which is Amara sort of libraries file but the idea of making curved shelving was really when I was developing the idea stores it really came to me then you know that there was a stigma if he was not very well educated or hadn't you know felt intimidated by education environments the sort of marching of rows and rows of academic books was actually probably don't think that somebody who wasn't used to using libraries communities that just feel disempowered from spaces that do that so in the idea of store which are looking at now we made a building which was open and cafes and spaces racks the books were displayed almost like book shops they were front on so you can see them and then the shelves were made into these faces that were like Gardens I call them garden spaces rather than books packs and the idea is that you could have a little sofa or a seat you can see 77b outside where you could have a little moment and just kind of read a book or sit down and look at stuff or go to the next set of shelves and to really dd0 these structure like to stop the sort of over formality of the library becoming a kind of burden but allowing it to become much more playful and much more generous to browsers the sophisticated browser still has the indexing system that is actually still working but the answer the event of the user that is not used to the library is able to playfully also kind of discover things and also Mike curving books what we realize is that you actually can see books in different ways you see the front end sometimes you see signs you're not just looking at spine using little tsa's into the way in which they sort of books can tease you and force you to of course even encourage you to look at different kind of period you know books and periodicals around uses not just looking for a number index but being seduced in the way I think bookshops do so well by allowing the sort of covers to also attract you to different subject matter so two different topics we won't be able to come to the library in to stay there and to see it as a kind of public living room so you know if we make soaring spaces and in the other so we develop you know this had this has a sprung dance space in it where you know yoga ballet jazz dance Irish jigs everything's being taught in this face with different teachers and classes and that was incredible but we were working on the idea of creating a space you know and actually it's became one of the most used spaces being rented out by sort of small creative institutions that were needed rehearsal space that couldn't find it that a proper sprung floors etc so it actually we realized that there was a way in which you could cross pollinate a lot of sort of important programs that you know didn't need to be in buildings that were specifically made but those specific program could be brought into community facilities which would expand the usability and then and iteration of the library so for instance the libraries here open till 10:00 or 11:00 at night depending on whether it's at the weekend or not I love this slide that you want to go into the ideas store a little bit I lived in London myself up until 2014 and can we agree that that neighborhood was not we would describe as a destination neighborhood within London when the idea store was built its very deprived very underfunded and in a way that first image we showed of that building was to make a sort of building that people saw in the distance you know when you look what's kind of amazing about the East End is that when you look down the Avenue you see the skyline of the center of London with these glistening glass and steel buildings and then this community was very under under invested so we said we wanted to build the building that the community sees in the skyline that felt that they were not part of you know it's a city where the bankers were we wanted to build a building that was just as beautiful just as good just for the community so we made this sort of very large environmentally friendly [Music] people have recalls reviews across their community but also across to the city skyline and to really allow them to aspire to dream more so yeah very important project for me really learned so many lessons on this you know gold leads building it uses sustainable timber and uses you know a lot of things that were really become normal discussions now in the way in which we build and David let's talk about a little bit about this process this was a global competition with submissions from people all over the world and you were selected for this and I believe you got rebus silver award that Sirois Institute of British architecture the silver prize here this came out so this is a pretty important piece of work that sort of draws a line in the sand and says this is I'd like us to think about libraries differently from here on out so for winter part to attach to this kind of thinking is so important and I love how you really contextualized here the neighborhood with the green market stalls really appearing on the glass and I know that you were discouraged from using glass I would describe some gloomy days that's what in London is nice translucent experiences and so glass may have been something that really took a lot of courage to use tell us about that process a little bit here and how that informs your work oh absolutely you know the immediate reaction was that glass would break and it will be vandalized extreme you know that you know hoards of kids would break the glass etc and we really said that we did you know we wanted to say that we did the community to really feel that this was theirs and then we believe that the success of this building was that if the community loved it then it would be exempt from that sense of exclusion the buildings that feel that they don't belong to the community are usually the buildings all the places that are attacked during demonstrations and things like that and so it's ironic you know they were prepared to put cages around the entire building when we opened it we had wall-to-wall you know queues of people wanting to get in it's still one of the most popular buildings community buildings in the entire borough it's caused a huge uproar of librarians from all over Europe and also the world to start coming to this idea stall to learn from it to study it and it's been credited with really revolutionising the small light with the community library facility which I mean incredible forward-thinking radical micro services community and the City Hall that kind of came together to say we've got to do better for our citizens and we've got to make something that's really going to make us proud in 20 years arms its full and it's really you know our biggest problem with this building it's being it's too full there are too many people at it so we're having to kind of you know you know we made it out of robust materials but where we actually value engineering down we now regret that to the very day because those are the materials that are having to be changed all the time and all the robust materials have really lasted and that little picture that just came through is humble in nature cuz I shot it on my phone when I was visiting the idea store and a trip to London several years ago one of the things I loved about this experience and it's a really bad picture I apologize David but it was and the experience of being in London it's very much a cooped-up experience because the weather is quite bad and I know someone's gonna be mad at me for saying that have these kind of moments of wonder where you can look off into a Vista and be inspired by what's out there and the idea that you might be gaining knowledge within that space to occupy an office off in the distance one day is a pretty exciting and that set democratization piece at work that's so impressive so I just love this sense of wonder that you bill into that space and I think that's definitely something we can look forward to in Winter Park I just looked this little image and how that was just off in a corner I literally took this picture on the top floor while I was looking for the bathroom and I just stopped dead in my tracks didn't say what my son said when he saw your design but I was a really interesting moment Wow that truly is a treasure right there that little special place being able to see that flanked by those green panels and and experience it that way is really a moment of wonder and so I'm gonna speak to your pedigree with respect to library design so we've established this process and landscape and the whole piece around democratization but let's really go to this portfolio what makes you the guy to design a library and I want to talk about some of what you did in Washington DC if you could take us through some of those projects and why those were transformational for those neighborhoods as well I'd love for you to talk about why you chose to build some of the buildings up on stilts because it was contextual for the neighborhood share with us a little bit about that Washington DC library experience okay well this is the Sounion which is sort of of course building on the mall that has been the backdrop this is a recent photo of that backdrop it's amazing this idea of buildings that can create empowerment we were so blown away this was sent to us by somebody in that crowd that the building became the backdrop that they wanted to use to to create a sort of frame for you know the protest and the kind of opportunity to talk about we're so proud of this image for me to become the sort of emblem of the building now but decided you know we were working on this project which is this very important building dedicated to making visible the history of african-americans in America at the same time I wanted to work in the communities so we worked we won two competitions to build two libraries in southeast and Southwest DC if you're gonna go forward you'll see them and you know it really came off the back of the lessons learnt in the idea stores and you know in these communities which you know we're not that sort of you know some well invested in that's what I say you know we wanted to create gems that were community infrastructure these two buildings of one a ia Awards and now celebrated in the community but the idea was next to this sort of Forest Park that's here next to the school that's in this on the street we wanted to create this for Francis Gregory library we created a new sort of library building which is sort of almost looking like a sort of diamond faceted that interior was played a different game who's that I became a tree house when you're inside and it was an idea of an architectural treehouse that was next to the forest that was full of knowledge and full of light so it's sort of bristling with sort of brimming with light and you are able to then go to the different parts of the program you're able to have learning facilities in a in a beautiful room that frames the forest views in the city you're able to have teaching spaces that are intimate I mean it does have soaring double-height spaces that have kind of places for teenagers who want to have their own space mothers and children are able to kind of have the smaller spaces to learn knitting or weaving or coloring sort of workshops for their children and these associate skills and the building itself is designed to be robust so that you can just rest inside the facades of the buildings and we love it when kids send us and till they just send us these images of like I was lying in that corner reading a book for hours you know that for us is a huge success of the project feeling like people want to be part of its environment and you can see the layering there are community rooms there are different spaces for digital traditional books sort of rooms for teaching children's library spaces etc that are all under this dappled light and so the building has these sort of dualities it can look very much sort of reflect the environment around it or in the evening when the lights go on it really becomes a beacon and Lantern that speaks to the library services that are also going on late in the evening these also open late in the evening and we love that this has become a very important thing this is Bellevue another neighborhood much more residential you can see the housing just behind and I became really inspired by the backs of these houses which really were not supposed to be seen where these sort of extensions to these sort of semi-detached houses row houses were basically on stilts and you know people fell you know we don't talk about that but actually the entire community had this collective knowledge of houses on stilts and I felt that there was something very beautiful about that and when we were doing the public sort of outreach to elevate that I'm always looking for something that seems common and powerful in a community that doesn't seem obvious that doesn't come from the grand narrative of architecture as in Greek temples or porticos but really comes from the community which could be elevated so in the ideas so it was the markets market stands here was this idea of sort of lifted Stilton buildings that create these beautiful environments and I wanted to make them vibrant with color and to use color as a way to really uplift the mood of the night you can see that I love color I'm not frightened to use color in public spaces I think it's a very we know that color frequencies really affect the psychology of people and elevates and animates young and old people in very profound ways so using color and very targeted ways to really uplift the environment and to reflect spaces so that this sense of living in a sense of more than what you can see is always something that I'm always trying to do in the work because I think it gives generosity to to the user somebody spending the whole day there or just spending an hour and it gives them something to want to come back and explore some more even something like a very simple staircase up to an upper teaching level you know being able to see out across the community and enter different spaces for teaching and working is very much a part of the way in which I think and it's not about expensive materials it's just really about thinking through what you could do with what you have and really being able to shift past your perception of what you think things could look like so this green sort of between that we created in the as a division between the book areas and the teaching could have just been a balustrade area but we wanted to create something that would create this wonderful sort of luminous lantern in the center of this of the building and it becomes a way of for people to understand the heart of the project which then allows you to look across to the book status than elsewhere and this is just looking on the street and what's really wonderful is when we made this building and we sort of elevated it it's south-facing so I had an environmental reason also for making it south-facing and lifting it because it deals with solar gain and allows us to make a much more energy-efficient building but also by lifting it I was sort of also speaking to this idea of the portico of the author of the of the everyday so these this is my portico of the everyday but what's great is that the community would have booth car boot sales etc and they had nowhere to do it then do it in car parks in in schools etc and the like we suddenly became the car boot sale and sort of space for the community now so it's it's public less was never shut to the side but this idea that happens spontaneously the community now assembles under this building because it was a shaded space that allowed people to be able to gather from the hot Sun hot tea see some especially in the summer months so it also involved with the community kind of even making more use of what you could do with this and that was really powerful and David I just love that that you use these types of contextual cues to inform your your design here and I'm thinking about the first time I heard you speak about inspiration for the Public Library in Winter Park it was really about a palmetto leaf that kind of helped you think through some of those faults or the scalloping of a seashell and so those really contextual inspiration point have an authenticity to them that are gonna inform each of these spaces and make them really more relevant to that type or local experience and so that's a really interesting part of your process I think that even though you're swooping in from Ghana or London you're really honoring the context where that space comes from can you talk a little bit about that for us yes for me especially with an architecture that's with communities for the public I think that it's it's important to have you know the history of architecture and all that professionalism but the humidity to be able to make something that comes from the place I think it's very important that architects have humility when dealing with public projects to be able to listen to the discourse to be able to listen to different views and you know it's hard I'm not saying it's easy it's very tough and sometimes it sort of implodes you know it's kind of reforms again and we're able to then find consensus and to find where we agree in how we things at the formals the formal edge as well as the community agent for me there's engagement with things that emanate from a place is very very foundational to the way I make all my work it's not just even community or public work it's really for me that there is a kind of humility that has to be had in the the honor of being given a public commission which will help define a community and different communities that's a common and to me that's the very minimum one can do in order to kind of make up a work you know our job is always to try and listen before we react and then react and then keep reacting and refining until we get to a place we have consensus I love this stage of where we are right now which is we as you know we had a referendum in Windows we literally asked the public do you want this new library and a majority of the public said yes and then we've gone through this very public process where we're all you know paying a small incremental fee on our tax bill to see this vision realized and I for one think it's totally worth it and I'm thrilled that we're having the opportunity to work with you but you talked about this process about the public realm and about you know it's interesting because this project really began in the public realm through the democratic process of the referendum and there is public ownership of this building from the beginning right now of course you're dealing with stakeholders that are custodians as you would if you will city commissioners and project managers piece like that but I really feel that we're almost pregnant with this public baby that's going to be returned to us and that's such an exciting process we're we're in that process it's fun to see earth moving on the site and we are excited to speak more about this idea you know somebody's to me why are you all building a library are people using are people using libraries anymore and I said well we're not really building a library we're building a 21st century iconoclast where we just totally destroy the idea of what that knowledge box or set of shelves could be and we're reimagining how Winter Park can create a space where all generations all walks of life all people can come together and be inspired by the Winter Park experience which we all know is so special and for us to be able to share that and transmit it to other people is even more exciting so as we think through final thoughts about the Winter Park project what would you like to share with us as we think about the earth being moved over there the D mocking all the unglamorous aspects of this project that we are going to chronicle moving forward what would you like us to know about that I just you know as I said in the beginning I think that whilst we're deep in the sort of details of the city etc on this was you said I love what you said this idea of being pregnant with a project for the public is exactly what this is about but as I said right at the beginning of my talk this is a prototype of a knowledge campus in the public realm it is something completely unique this has not happened anywhere it hasn't happened on any library projects that I've done that that there is an investment in a public infrastructure as a campus of knowledge space of knowledge beyond a single object building this is a clustering of a place to be edified in and beautifully your calling card which is about edification and sustenance so they're both resuscitate what is mental resuscitation the other ones of physical resuscitation and they work as I kind of dialectic a double that really replenish the public life of the citizen do you think that the idea that this will be really washed by other communities as they understand what the library is library is no longer just a space for books it is a place of the and it's a place of empowerment and edification that is what the library has transformed into and so the things that now support that are now what we're now involving the library in the public realm to be and this project I think I'm not trying to in any way saying is we're doing it but it is because of the effort of the entire custodians of the city and the community and the library services to come together to really think out of the box and to think of a new process has allowed us to berth together this incredible prototype which I think is going to be looked at by other other communities it really this simple idea of making three structures two inhabited you know four used you know the podium the library the event sort of poles the sort of co-chair sort of arrivals project and the spaces in between all as inside outside spaces that are dedicated to knowledge and knowledge giving and community edification is something radically new and I just think that it's something for which about to be very proud of it's gonna be something that you're going to celebrate and it's going to be something that's going to be the envy about the communities because you're gonna really have something that is really of the 21st century birth from the 21st century and will last and be a model for communities as they look at how they should evolve their their ways of serving their communities as we move deepens in 20th 21st century it's really powerful and I'm honored to be really working on this project we do so I always say pleased with this project don't see it as a as a single box it's not me making a box we're making a canvas we're making a village of knowledge and it's in this beautiful space and it's half well you heard it here first today that Winter Park is engaging in a public prototyping process and what a privilege to be on the bleeding edge of how people think about architecture design public spaces landscapes all the things we've talked about today David thank you so much for your time and engagement for your genius in this process unfolding for the face that you've placed in winter to be a partner in the realization of your design thank you on behalf of so many so many citizens who truly appreciate what's happening here we are deeply grateful so thank you for spending time with us today and I want to thank our visionary mayor and city commissioners and our visionary Library Board all the partners and funders who've made this possible for us we want you to follow the chamber for more information about libraries about library designing about what's going on in this process we're going to be helping story tell about our little pregnancy here so we're very excited about that and and look to the chamber on Facebook Twitter Instagram and LinkedIn for more information about what's happening with this will be hosting webinars where we talk about the importance of the 21st century library so look to us to help complete your understanding of this project and on behalf of all of us in Winter Park thank you so much sir David ashame for spending time with us today thank you so much I want to thank our partners Hunton Brady effects who really have been invaluable partners for us learning how to build in your communities so I just wanted to make sure that I sort of hold them out we could not be doing this without their guidance in their help and thank you all for allowing us to serve you this way so soon to a more severe thank you David

Channel: Winter Park Chamber of Commerce

Views: 2,095

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: iMovie

Id: R0-2dX4Z7xM

Length: 56min 21sec (3381 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 19 2020