Applied Amazoogle Architecture

While delayed on the flight home last week, I did what any bored and disgruntled traveler does--lounge by the magazine racks and read all you can before looking conspicuously like you're not going to buy anything.

Since I'm always curious about architecture and spatial design for buildings, I picked up the August edition of House and Garden. Not the New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, This Old House or even Dwell. No, the cover allured me with its ocean scene of tranquility--something the Newark airport is decidedly lacking in.

What a delight when I flip to page 60 and there's a feature story on the new Seattle Public Library!
Of course, the article centers on the innovative design and the architect, Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Ramus of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Still, the words and glossy photo spreads more than convey the central theme: libraries of the future are hip, cool and here to stay. (See the library's own slide show.) A quote from the H & G article says it's "a state-of-the-art facility that...reinvents the library for the electronic age." (63)

They use RFID to speed book sorting and there's a mixing chamber (a trading floor for information) and a book spiral, a rectangular ramp system that lets materials be displayed by their DDC classification in an interrupted flow.

The kicker comes at the end of the short article:
"With economy and elegance, Koolhaas throws new light on his subject, which turns out to be not just a library, but a model of how to make a rousing noncommercial public space in an age when the shopping mall often seems America's defining building type."

Yeah! Go libraries!