Stevey_G
Active Member
(searches deep and hard for an answer)
Cover it in murals and solar panels!
Cover it in murals and solar panels!
Stanley A. Milner Library | ?m | 6s | EPL | Teeple Architects
- Thread starter Daveography
- Start date
archited
Senior Member
kcantor
Senior Member
^^
i would pass on the solar panels - i don’t think there is enough space or sunlight at that level along with the added costs of integrating into what’s already installed electrically to make it worthwhile.
turning it into a series of easels or sculpture bases for a mix of permanent or temporary or rotating art displays is brilliant.
it could even be a blend of physical and electronic displays that could incorporate performance art or be tied into that electronic main floor lobby feature wall.
as archited noted, you deserve a prize for this one for sure.
i would pass on the solar panels - i don’t think there is enough space or sunlight at that level along with the added costs of integrating into what’s already installed electrically to make it worthwhile.
turning it into a series of easels or sculpture bases for a mix of permanent or temporary or rotating art displays is brilliant.
it could even be a blend of physical and electronic displays that could incorporate performance art or be tied into that electronic main floor lobby feature wall.
as archited noted, you deserve a prize for this one for sure.
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Stevey_G
Active Member
That’s what I was thinking. Standing horizontal walls inundated with murals from Edmonton’s history, maybe even our future?
And the roof plastered with solar panels and lifted snow breaks.
Like you said, the standing seem makes this a real opportunity to be a blank slate.
Stevey_G
Active Member
I dig that idea!
Clearshades
Senior Member
That is the photon torpedo.
thommyjo
Senior Member
Having visited some of the suburban EPLs recently (meadows, meadowlark) i am just confused by the finished product here. Why do we have multiple beautiful libraries outside our core, but then a complete failure of design in the heart of our city?
Stevey_G
Active Member
- because the city has leaders who will compare cost overruns on a project just down the road to "opening the walls of a kitchen and finding surprise problems", yet think rehabilitating a large, existing, library will go seamlessly and save them money.
Boils down to poor consulting, cost-saving design choices, and poor vision.
TAS
Senior Member
And that there's no comparison between the inside features of the downtown library with any of the branches - myself, i have not seen the inside of any of those new facilities except for the downtown site.
Agreed though, the exterior is disappointing.
Agreed though, the exterior is disappointing.
Clearshades
Senior Member
Long story short, a reoccurring story that our councils don't have the knowledgeable experiences or understanding to make prudent decision making. Other corporations require master degree for decisions' making positions as this and the councillors are voted in without a resume but just pure good lip services...
Stevey_G
Active Member
Hey I'm proficient at yelling sweet nothings. Maybe I should run.
tkoe_
Active Member
Unpopular take, but politicians give lip service because most voters don't want to hear the hard truth. The fact of the matter is that most people who run for city council are in it for the right reasons and try to do a good job, but representing the disparate interests of a large and diverse city is very difficult. People blame you when anything goes wrong and no matter what choice you make, there is likely to be someone who thinks you're an idiot.
None of this is to say that councillors can't be criticized, but if you think that this 'reoccurring story' could simply be fixed by getting someone with the right education, I'd encourage you to run and show us all how its done.
Stevey_G
Active Member
I think people are aware and tired of being fed bull. The library for example, people would respect a government more for coming out and saying “we are going with a cost effective method of improving efficiencies in this building. Our goal is to make it warmer inside and more modern. But we don’t have the funds to build a world class library so we diminished the exterior design and went with what we saw were cheaper alternatives at the time. There were unforeseen cost overruns we learned from and must do better to mitigate in the future.”
Yes there would be criticism. But personally I think a good government is open to constructive criticism. It encourages innovation.
kcantor
Senior Member
^
it's a difficult thing to do even if/when it's the right thing to do...
with the library as an example, the initial renderings with the proposed curves and materials on those curves would have been quite striking. when those became unaffordable. they value-engineered it to straight planes and a cheaper cladding. the focus was on "protecting" as much of the initial conceptual ideas as possible and failing to recognize that they were destroying whatever rationale there was in the initial conceptual ideas.
they basically said "how much of this can we still manage to pay for and how do we cut out the rest".
what they should have said is "this is how much we can afford, how can we make it go as far as we can".
it's not a matter of how much is available to spend as much as it's what's the best value we can build/acquire for what we can spend.
there were multi-millions of dollars spent on this bibliotank that could simply have been much better spent on something more appropriate. that, however, takes both a client and a consulting team prepared to deal with reality instead of preferring to ignore it. it's easy to blame just the client but the architect also has to be prepared to respect the integrity of the initial design and say "if we can't afford to to that, we should revisit things and do this instead" instead of delivering crap.
it's a difficult thing to do even if/when it's the right thing to do...
with the library as an example, the initial renderings with the proposed curves and materials on those curves would have been quite striking. when those became unaffordable. they value-engineered it to straight planes and a cheaper cladding. the focus was on "protecting" as much of the initial conceptual ideas as possible and failing to recognize that they were destroying whatever rationale there was in the initial conceptual ideas.
they basically said "how much of this can we still manage to pay for and how do we cut out the rest".
what they should have said is "this is how much we can afford, how can we make it go as far as we can".
it's not a matter of how much is available to spend as much as it's what's the best value we can build/acquire for what we can spend.
there were multi-millions of dollars spent on this bibliotank that could simply have been much better spent on something more appropriate. that, however, takes both a client and a consulting team prepared to deal with reality instead of preferring to ignore it. it's easy to blame just the client but the architect also has to be prepared to respect the integrity of the initial design and say "if we can't afford to to that, we should revisit things and do this instead" instead of delivering crap.
tkoe_
Active Member
I don't disagree. I dislike when politicians talk a lot without saying much, but why do you think they do that? Are they bad people? Do they want to do a bad job? Or are they trying to avoid criticism and make the best of a bad situation? It is unlikely that being honest and telling people that the library project was a failure is going to win many votes now, but trying to pretend it isn't that bad might save some on Council after the next election.
It is cynical, but politicians won't typically admit failure because voters won't often accept it. That doesn't mean it can't piss you off, but there is no magic education or background that suddenly makes someone competent. You just have to do your best to figure out who really is trying to do the right thing consistently, even if they don't always get it right.