Second – Future (Concept) Project
Architect: Ashkan Rafiey
Project’s Name: Forgotten Knowledge
(Lut desert)
Project Description: This project is located in the Lut Desert, Iran. The project site was decided due to the closeby towns that hold numerous ancient and unique local manuscripts, damaged or kept through time. This library celebrates these precious transcribed books and expresses them through a challenging and new structural diagram for a library.
The library represents the last of the untouched moral universes; communal accommodations for good and what is essential. The pure goodness of the library is intimately connected to the value of the book, and the book is held and guarded by the bookshelf.
This project is located in the Lut Desert, Iran. The project site was decided due to the closeby towns that hold numerous ancient and unique local manuscripts, damaged or kept through time. This library celebrates these precious transcribed books and expresses them through a challenging and new structural diagram for a library.
This project recognizes the bookshelf as the main element of a library and uses it as its primary structure. Rather than having a box filled with bookshelves, the shelf acts as the project’s structure and closure. By arranging the grided bookshelves in iteration, a series of linear grids take shape where different programmed boxes get trapped within, like a fly in a spider’s web. They represent the forgotten knowledge in time, being frozen in a white structure of bookshelves. Each box holds a program based on its placement on the web. The roof of the boxes is open platforms for the reading area.
All the library’s books are placed on the structural shelves where they can be accessed through diverse scenarios. Each zone of this iterated structure categorizes the books. Some can be taken from the ground level, where some shelves are carved out for sitting and reading areas and pathways. Other books, however, can be collected by passing the bridges that break through the shelves in order to connect the boxes and create circulation.
