KIRSTEN COWAN | Architecture
Portfolio Project: Free Flow: a Library at the High Line
 Free Flow renderingThe library's green roof ramps provide the only point on the High Line at which the abrupt transition from green park to concrete street is softened. They also offer direct ADA-compliant access from the street to the High Line: something previously denied to wheelchairs and strollers. The library therefore becomes a piece of landscape and infrastructure as well as architecture. |  Model: CNC and laser-cutThis bird's eye view shows the library as both an extension of, and connection to, the High Line. Two ramps leading down from the High Line are incised with clerestory windows. For safety, the topography of the accessible portions of the green roof is manipulated at the edges, rather than relying on railings as an afterthought. |  Interior renderingThe interior is the topographical analogue of the roof: Spatial definition is achieved with variations in floor elevations and ceiling planes rather than opaque walls, enabling free visual and circulatory flow in space, and over time. |
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 Model detailThe traditional role of the library as an un-biased and trusted provider of knowledge is celebrated in the reference wing. Held aloft in the highest point of the library, it is also the only termination point in the otherwise flowing circulation system of the building. |  Isometric composite drawingThis sectional isometric shows how the east end of the library consists of two "fingers" - one for the café and one for the main entrance - which are tucked under the High Line so that it can be deployed as a portico. |  Ground Floor planThe library proper uses the prescribed two-thirds of the block, but the footprint is elongated to enable ADA compliant access from the High Line to the street at the southwest. On the ground floor, the glass-walled children's section and stroller parking can be accessed immediately upon entering the library, so that strollers and children have minimal impact on the circulation and noise levels in the rest of the library. |
 SectionLoops and shortcuts in plan and section invite the transfer/flow of one type of patron to another (from casual borrower to serious researcher, from young adult patron to adult patron, from community visitor to library patron). |
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Fundamental to a public library is the ideal of free access to information, site, and programs. This library’s site, in a flood zone and under the High Line, pushes this ideal further: the library becomes accessible and open to the free and interwoven flow of knowledge, people, water, and sightlines. We thus consider the library as a performative piece of landscape, infrastructure, and building.
The local context freely flows into, out of, around, and on top of the library. The edges between the High Line and the library’s roof are blurred, as are the edges between the street, the library’s outdoor space, and the interior.
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