Once more, with feeling

[k8tey]

For those who have seen it, please respond!

1. What do you think of the carpets in the Seattle Public Library? Specifically the ones with the huge botanical prints?

2. Has anyone seen the auditorium curtain? Touched it? Thoughts?

Sorry if I blathered on in my last post, but I want you to share your reactions!

Please?

Comments

you asked...

[vorona]

I love the huge botanical print carpets. They're great.

And I still love the screaming chartreuse escalators.

But I am deeply disgusted with some other, less noticeable aspects of the place.

Hey, I still wouldn't kick Rem Koolhaas out of bed or anything silly like that.

And it's not his fault. I refuse to believe it's his fault. It just can't be. But someone really blew it in a few areas. The work spaces around The Infernal Machine are naaaassssty industrial-in-a-bad-way. It's an unpleasant, grinding, stressful, and ugly space. No thought seems to have been given to the human beings who work there for hours. The "SHO" room (get it, like an auto plant, ha ha... ha...) is bleak and cold, a horridly "functional" place - again, no consideration of how depressing it must be to spend hours in this ugly, windowless room.

They seem to have cranked the air a bit, but, stupidly, the 1st floor circ desk was built without air vents precisely where people are working hardest and need them most, making it prone to dead, stale air. And it's LOUD - it's hard to hear people over the conveyor combined with kids running and yelling across the hard floors. The not-chocolate-enough chocolate-pudding-looking resin floor is loud and clattery. The metal wall doesn't help the situation. Word is that the decibel level is "just under" legal standards, but people are ultra-stressed and complaining of aural discomfort. It's very unpleasant.

And then there's the matter of strong autumn sunshine streaming in the windows in the afternoon, bouncing hard on the wooden floor, and hitting the employees at the desk directly in the eyes. Ugh. Didn't they bother thinking about where the sun would be, or didn't it matter at all, I wonder. I love the look of the carved letters on the floor, but the headache-inducing glare from the windows is intolerable at times. It's offensive that they didn't seem to consider the people actually working at the desks in this fanciful design.

But the carpets are fine. The carpets are good.

I'll get back to you on the curtain issue. I'll go touch it tomorrow.

Re: you asked...

[k8tey]

A friend and professor of mine, one of the most sensitive and expressive artists/designers I know, was very distressed by the noise level.

I find the mechanical systems' lack of function (the air issue) depressing. I wonder if this is the mechanical engineer's fault: perhaps a misinterpretation of the designer's intent? I can only hope.

The light is definitely koolhass' fault, though. That is really unfortunate, especially with all that glazing and glare.

Do you have to wear one of those walkie-talkie things with the funny name?

Thank you for commenting on the carpets and the curtain. The reason my questions are so narrowly focused on those items is that's the type of design I am most interested in doing, myself.

Designing textile solutions for institutional space = katey's dream job. I see the use of textiles in this space to be really innovative. It sounds as if some more curtain-like textile structures could have really helped both the noise and light problems. But that highlights what is being referred to by some designers as "curtain wars": The desire of architects to build great glass shells with FORM, and the desire of interior designers to cover the glass up with textiles to provide FUNCTION...it's a fascinating by-product of modernism, and very tied to hierarchies in the profession as well as gender roles.

At St. Martin's College they are designing vitamin enriched fabrics. Maybe fabrics imbued with air could be of use in your library. :)

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, Ivy. I was very much looking forward to hearing your viewpoint!

but could the padrones milk their own cows?

[vorona]

No, I don't wear a vocera, because I'm neither a shelver nor a librarian. Many of those wearing the voceras have said that they feel like they're being "run around all day like robots." For the librarians, this creepily combines with losing their traditional materials selection duties to outsourcing. As the clerks work faster, harder, and much more impersonally with the public. It's dystopian and it's polarized - the working conditions echo the assembly-line and "out in the fields" design themes. It's quite regressive, and people are unhappy. The stress is literally making people sick, breaking them. The wonderful chartreuse elevators and the muttering bald heads in the escalator wall (oh yeah!) and even the lipstick/artery meeting floor can't make up for this.

Re: but could the padrones milk their own cows?

[k8tey]

Many of those wearing the voceras have said that they feel like they're being "run around all day like robots."

When I first read about the vocera, this was exacly my fear.

The stress is literally making people sick, breaking them.

This is horrible. This is the hallmark of the worst type of design. Sick Building Syndrome. No pretty carpet or graphic wayfinding can ever make up for this.