Thao Le, Discussion Section #7, Title “Shield Library front yard in my eyes”, wordcount: 1143.

Any person, who has been or used to be a student or faculty at the University of
California, Davis is well familiar with the image of Shield Library’s front yard, which is located
on the side of the Central Park. The sight of the library is easily captured by its unique and
formal frontward design with a semi-circular shape and the blue color of the building. In this
paper, I will focus on the strength and weaknesses in the design of the library front yard by
applying the social context approach and new consideration for the Covid time that parts of
design should be improved. I will communicate the stand-out features of the library that make it
iconic and successfully contributes to the school’s community. In addition, I will also point out
the weak points that negatively affect the operation of human activity as well as the safety of
their well-being during the pandemic.
Firstly, the design of the Shield Library front yard is a satisfactory example of a social
context approach. According to the social context approach from the video The Municipal Art
Society of New York, the plan briefly focuses on the ideas of how public places should be made
to utilize their function at most, these factors include sittable places for the community to gather,
and natural elements such as trees, sun, and water. The front yard is a spacious area, and it has
benches everywhere, embracing its edge that faces the street, moreover, the sidestep also plays a
critical role to serve people as an alternative seat. By each set of four benches, there is a tall tree
in between with the lamp on the top which skillfully creates a place that conveys the close sense
of nature. In the matter of well-being, in “Public Green Spaces and Positive Mental Health” by
Wood, “while the physical activity benefits of living near parks and public open space are well
documented, and green space has shown to ameliorate depression and stress, this study has
demonstrated that the provision of parks in local neighborhoods and within walking distance is
important also for positive mental health”, the green factor and open space within a place is
highly appreciated for human’s well-being because of its optimistic impact on mental health.
Then the green space of the front yard also communicates the same influence, because the library
itself frequently spread the atmosphere of studying, and researching, which also turns into the
atmosphere of pressure and overconcentration from work, then the outside scene now becomes a
place to mitigate those negative feeling and bringing up the meditative and relaxing ambiance. In
addition, the central park nearby which can be viewed from the library has great involvement in
the stress reduction, that it makes the space look more open and refreshing, make the scene of
huge buildings less stuffed and narrow. And with those facilities, people can easily enjoy their
break on the bench with their own social groups, and equally important they also can take a walk
around the front yard or back and forth to the central park. Hence, observing the Shield Library
front yard from the aspects of social context and green spaces for mental health, the place has
met the basic features to serve human activities as well as increasing the positive result of human
well-being mentally and physically. For those reasons, the library front yard attracts a lot of
people to be a part of its community and gains students’ imprint in mind when it is mentioned.
Secondly, there are some parts of the Shield Library front yard that were not designed properly
and resulted in certain unwanted qualities. From the social context approach in “Toward an
Urban Design Manifesto” by Jacob, he presented the qualities that one urban place should have,
and common mistakes in design that is “Architects and planners take (city) and themselves too
seriously: the result too often is deadliness and boredom, no imagination, no humor, alienating
places” and the front yard has made an important flaw in the aspect of aesthetics that is it lacks
the access to imagination and joy. The design is highly monotonic, the wall and furniture are
colored one shade, and they are arranged in a rigid order, all of which all create the sense of
lifelessness and boredom. Therefore, decorations like flowers or adding another color would be
great implements to liven up the place. Furthermore, the disproportion between the front yard
with its surrounding areas which are the street and the bicycle parking have restricted another
human activity besides walking and gathering. On the daily basis, the road is always busy, but
the size is too small compared to the number of people using it. Consequently, this results in the
huge inconvenience of comfortably moving for both bikers and pedestrians. The size of the
bicycle parking site is as well a concern for students because it is not large enough for bike’s
capacity, and this puts students in a difficult situation when it comes to finding a spot for their
bikes. These details could be fixed but it requires a lot the change from the site surrounding the
front yard to optimize students’ service. The road and the bicycle parking should be expanded in
order to smooth the flow of vehicles and people, and also maximize the area of parking spots.
Especially, during covid, the distance between people should be reconsidered, and by these
changes, people now have more space to do their work and lessen the possibility to spread covid
because of unwanted interaction. These small improvements on the new decoration and the size
of neighboring areas of the Shield Library’s front yard would bring a great benefit for the mental
health and activities of the UC Davis community in the long term.
In brief, from the perspective of social context approach, the Shield Library’s front yard
is successful in making a space for people to get together, and reducing stress thanks to the green
involvement and open space from the park. On the other hand, any design can have a flaw and
that is why we should be flexible to change and enhance. Building on more natural elements
such as flowers or adding more colors to the building in this case is necessary to blow up the
sense of eagerness into the place. Equivalently, the importance of the neighboring space should
not be ignored because it can be a part that hider the function and the purpose of the front yard
and the library. In this circumstance, the bicycle parking and the street should be enlarged, to
have more open space not only for the vehicle and the moving of people, but also to guarantee
health safety during a covid time. All of these will facilitate easier access to the library front yard
and promote social congregation at most.
Reference page:

Wood - “Public Green Spaces and Positive Mental Health”

Jacobs A. & Appleyard - Toward an Urban Design Manifesto (reader)Whyte - The
Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (reader)