JAVIER MOSQUERA GONZALEZ Architects
DAEGU GOSAN PUBLIC LIBRARY
Type: Open international competition.
Location: Daegu. South Korea.
Year: 2012.
Program: Library.
Size: 3.100m2
Coauthors: Juan Enrique Alvarez. Alfonso Peralta. Manuel Cifuentes.
1. THE UNSETTLED SITE
The proposed area to site the new library is located in a green square at the end of institutional, commercial and green border of this area of Gosan development along de highway. Should the condition of the site as the end of the promenade be understood as a temporary condition. In this respect, the proposal must bond the existing border promenade to the inner development of the area, as well as enhance linear condition of the border promenade.
2. THE DISTORTED OBJECT
In the proposal area, where a green square is currently sited, the new building will be an object that would make the green square into green areas to merge the neighborhood urban fabric with the tree promenade, in a two-way proposal that through distorting the building, new surrounding gardens belong to the framework and, at the same part, to the tree promenade.
Thus, the multiple directions that meet in the ground floor, drill the building with several accesses, giving it an opened and fluid character. The ground floor becomes a catalyst for new civic activities that spread out beyond the limits to the new gardens and endowing sense and character to these new surrounding landscapes. Different characters, because it’s not the same the border on the tree promenade than the neighborhood narrow streets that are meeting in the proposal site. The ground floor understood as a flexible catalyst that will perfectly fit to different uses and different special need, so it will easily change with the area development.
3. THE TWO FACES BUILDING
Over the ground floor, civic activities catalyst, the most inherent functions to the library are developed. The concept of library is developing more than ever before. New audiovisual supports and the ancient paper are used together implementing the knowledge acquire ways. Both are necessary but both require different spatial needs. The traditional library concept, in opposite to current supports, needs high light intensity but soft light, like summit light or north light, that suffuse the space. On the other hand, new audiovisual support will need a lower light intensity in order to ensure a proper working of the devices. The building turns it back on high intensity light that triggers off light and shadow high contrast, which is not suitable to a library, and thus, the building shape generates lower light intensity spaces that fit perfectly to these supports.
4. ECO-FRIENDLY ENERGY USE
The building design is seeking for a maximum reduction in the energy consumption. Active and passive measures are at the very beginning stage in the design, which are focused in two fronts; first, using the latent soil energy due to its stable temperature along the whole year; and secondly, understanding the enveloping as an energy collector skin.
5. ENVELOPING
Designing an eco-friendly building is, with no doubt, understanding the enveloping as en energy collector instead of a skin through which all the energy produced is thrown away. Therefore, the building envelope turns to be a great power plant through several strategies:
- air space façades to the south: the façade has three layers; the inner layer is made of concrete, heavy and with high thermal lag, helping to keep an stable temperature inside; the metal panels exterior layer which heats the air space in between collecting the solar irradiance; the air space, working as an air cushion while shuttered in winter, and in summer, opening the slats, works as an air draft, cooling the air space.
- sun facing surfaces on the roof fits perfect for photovoltaic panels to generate electric energy.
- Thermodynamic panel enveloping surfaces facing north, taking advantage of its capacity to generate energy by extracting the air heat without any solar irradiance need.
Being the building envelope an energy collector, it’s evident that needs to have a high shape factor. El building is composed of many surfaces, each one being a small energy collector or generator.
6. SOIL
No doubt, taking advantage of the soil stable temperature to settle geothermic measures means a great contribution to the building energetic efficiency, which are developed in both active and passive facilities.
- geothermic wells as active facility heat or cool the water supply to the heating pump.
- buried air shafts as passive facility that use the soil stable temperature to treat the air supply to the heating pump by collecting heat in winter or getting rid of heat in summer, which extremely increases the machine efficiency.
Throughout every measure taken in the building design and its facilities, the eco-friendly energy use and generation are assured through three ways:
- turn the enveloping into an energy collector
- minimum energy loss through building enveloping
- take advantage of the soil stable temperature along the whole year
7. EFFECTIVE BUILDING WORKS
Also, when designing the building, must be taken into account the energy needs to be built, and the costs; therefore we plan a precast and local materials building. In accordance, the building rises using plug-in precast white concrete structure, which means an accurate, quick, and economical building works. The exterior enveloping layer, to a higher performance of the facilities and economical resources, is designed with metal precast paneling, taking advantage of the strong metal industry settled down in Daegu.