An outlook towards library as an architectural typology of spaces for learning

and knowledge

A comparative analysis of architectural elements between Lilavati Lalbhai Library

and Stuttgart City Library

Shiv Mistry
UA6617
Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University

Abstract
The excerpt talks about the library as a typology of spaces of learning and knowledge. The library
typology is a very diverse topic that talks about the very diverse nature of spaces that can be seen
through the extent of the topology. The diversity can not only be seen in terms of the nature of spaces
but also its architectural elements, the functionality of spaces, the user demographic it caters to as well
as the context it sits in. To further understand this diversity, a comparative analysis of two diverse case
studies of Lilavati Lalbhai Library and Stuttgart City Library is done. These case studies are done
through the lens of its architectural elements, namely, the plinth, the structure, the core or courtyard,
etc. While the functionality of spaces is observed through the lens of the nature of spaces that both the
libraries offer, namely, reading spaces, book repositories, entrance spaces, and the nature of these
spaces being light, heavy, public, intimate, etc. The approaches toward these spatial functions and the
nature of spaces can be correlated to the user demographic that it caters to, by understanding the users,
their engagement with the library, in terms of reading time or accessing the library to issue books or
spend longer duration reading there itself. The response to context also becomes one of the factors that
drive this diversity in the typology. The context is what also helps drive the form of the library that can
respond to the site it sits in or create its stature in the context it sits in. By correlating this analysis, a
framework between the aforementioned characteristics of these libraries can help us establish the
diversity of the library spaces as spaces of learning and knowledge.

Keywords

Library, Spaces of Learning, Spaces of knowledge, Architectural Elements, Functionality of Spaces, User
Demographics, Site Context
0.1.0: Understanding the Lilavati Lalbhai Library

The library as a typology of spaces of learning and knowledge has very romanticized,
pre-conceived notions of spatial experiences that it offers to its user. This notion of spatial
experience comes from the characteristics of spaces it generates through various configurations
of the architectural elements that the structure and design offer. The user demographic of the
library with respect to its context also influences the structure and design, giving different
nature of spaces among the vast typology of libraries as spaces of learning and knowledge. To
understand this diversity with the lens of the various architectural lenses, specifically being, the
architectural elements that define the nature of spaces, the context that assists its design
process, and the user demographic that drives the design process. These lenses become the
analytical tools in understanding the library typology and the diversity of design it provides
through a comparative study of Lilavati Lalbhai Library and Stuttgart City Library, which are
very contrasting, in terms of the spaces that they offer to the diverse demographics that they
cater to as well.

The Lilavati Lalbhai Library, established in 2017, has been a vital addition to CEPT University's
academic community. When the multilevel subterranean structure was built, it raised a high
plinth above the Shrenikbhai Ground, establishing
an authoritative statement in the context of the
pre-existing Faculty of Technology, beautiful south
lawns, Administration, Faculty of Planning, and
Faculty of Architecture. The Library was the first of
several new structures to be built on the CEPT
Campus, and it was quickly followed by the CEPT
Workshops, North Canteen, CFP Building, and the
upcoming Admin Block.
Fig 1 : The Lilavati Lalbhai Library from new south lawns

0.1.1: Understanding the Architectural Elements of Lilavati Lalbhai Library

The pre-existing south lawns between the Admin block and the Faculty of Technology were
substantially remodeled, with the library plinth
demolishing its exquisite contours that
complemented the North Lawns and constructing a
flat garden lawn with a tiny pavilion that currently
caters to various academic activities (Kumar, 2018).
The new plinth's acquisition of the pre-existing
south lawns illustrates the library's dominion over
the existing campus in order to establish its identity.

Fig 2 : The old south lawns, prior to the library plinth being established
With its gigantic plinth and monolithic RCC superstructure that supported a permeable shell on
top, the Lilavati Lalbhai Library created a shift in the typology of the campus, much as the shift
in the philosophy of academic approach (For New
CEPT Library, Architect Has Designs on
Mughal-Era Pool, 2015). This new building, with its
distinctive material palette, was also at the core of
the campus. The library building was asserting a
significant dominance over its context by
disrupting all the ideologies that were incorporated
throughout the homogenous campus with its new
material palette and humongous plinth, along with
the capacious shell.
Fig 3 : The Monolithic superstructure and material palette of Lilavati Lalbhai Library

0.1.2: Understanding the Implications of Architectural Elements in Lilavati Lalbhai Library

The underlying mechanisms enrolled in the new library exert authority in its functioning, and
instead of providing a readily available conduit of information for students. The library's
massive inventory of literature is housed on lower floors, in the subterranean, with only a single
staircase allowing access to the room (Gonchar, 2018). While the majority of referential material
is restricted explicitly to the students it is supposed to serve, student work such as thesis and
archival drawings can be accessed through a succession of portals and administrative
procedures. The library's complex structure of operation implicitly imposes its authority on its
users.

This perception of power that the library enforces, if it was a conscious decision or not, could
still be remedied by attempting to put the library's main entrance in the basement itself, which
is sited at the Sagara Basement level (Mehta, n.d.). This would create an atmosphere of
accessibility that the massive plinth and monolithic structure fails to deliver, and also would
have responded to the context's cohesiveness by conserving the previously existing sculpted
south lawns that would dilute the sense of authority that the library fails to achieve.

Fig 4: The approach toward repository and reading spaces of Lilavati Lalbhai Library
0.2.1: Understanding the Architectural Elements of Stuttgart City Library

While the Lilavati Library is based in an institutional environment, the Stuttgart City Library is
located in an urban environment and caters totally diverse demography of people. Stuttgart City
Library offers a different approach to the nature of the spaces it creates, being very centralized,
with what seems to be a step well and also a very seamless core, as opposed to Lilavati Lalbhai
Library's strong dense core, with far more peripheral spaces and a rigid nucleus that becomes
murky given the nature of the spaces it ends up creating (Nair, n.d.).

Unlike the Lilavati Lalbhai Library, the Stuttgart City Library doesn’t establish a heavy plinth in
its architectural context, despite the similarities of the subterranean structure. This is also
driven by the user diverse user demographic of Stuttgart City Library where a much wider
range of people accesses the library (The New
Municipal Library in Stuttgart | Yi Architects, n.d.).
The subterranean spaces are in nature much
different than that of Lilavati Lalbhai Library as, it
has a much more permeable quadruple volume, that
detaches the library from its retaining wall in order
to bring in light in the subterranean reading spaces.
These quadruple volumes also serve as an
exhibition space for the institute, a function which
the Stuttgart City Library, does not need to cater as
a public library for an urban demographic.
Fig 5 : The Low to no plinth of the Stuttgart City Library

0.2.2: Understanding the Implications of Architectural Elements in Stuttgart City Library

The Stuttgart City Library is very similar to Lilavati

Lalbhai Library in terms of its form massing as
both have heavy cuboidal superstructure that gives
it a massy perception. Stuttgart City Library has a
44m square floor plate as opposed to a slightly
smaller 36m square floor plate of Lilavati LalBhai
Library, despite which the Lilavati Lalbhai Library
due to its monolithic ground floor seems much
heavier than the porous facades of Stuttgart City
Library (O'Connor, 2019). Even though Lilavati
Lalbhai Library, as well as a porous shell on top of
the monolithic base, the transparency that it tries to
achieve, comes a bit abrupt as compared to the
uniformly porous facades of Stuttgart City Library.
Fig 6 : The square floor plate of the Stuttgart City Library
Stuttgart City Library's user demography as a public library responds to an urban population,
whilst the Lilavati Lalbhai Library caters to an academic demographic of students and faculty of
a particular subject of practice. This could be seen in the character of spaces in both libraries,
as the Lilavati Lalbhai Library has subsurface environments that are much more private than
the open spaces in Stuttgart's large core (Payne, n.d.), where people come for a brief duration of
reading instead of a long reading period that demands more attention for the educational target
audience of the Lilavati Lalbhai Library.

0.3.1: Correlating both the case studies of Lilavati Lalbhai Library and Stuttgart City
Library

The idea of a city library as a public place establishes a sense of openness or accessibility
towards the residents of the city, while a private library that caters to a specific institute, like
Lilavati Lalbhai Library doesn’t offer the same level of accessibility to its user, which can be
seen in the design of both these libraries as the Lilavati Lalbhai Library has an isolated
approach to the reading spaces from the main entry, unlike the voluminous central atrium in
Stuttgart City Library that gives much more direct access to the treading spaces.

The arrangement of the repository of the books in itself evidences the same, where the Lilavati
Lalbhai Library creates 4 cores of book shaft that wrap around central reading spaces
distributed between two mezzanines creating a
complex arrangement of books and their relation to
readers in the reading spaces. While the Stuttgart
City Library has a very simple arrangement of
books that are shelved on the peripheries of the
reading spaces (Payne, n.d.), giving a voluminous
reading space that offers a very public reading
experience. The complex book stacking in the
Lilavati Lalbhai Library creates an opportunity for
peripheral reading spaces that offers a much more
private and intimate reading experience.
Fig 7 : The voluminous core of the Stuttgart City Library

This simple arrangement of the repository of books gives the architect room to explore in terms
of transitional spaces that can be seen exploited in the Stuttgart City Library through its
complex arrangement of staircases and transitional elements (Prizeman et al., 2012). While the
Stuttgart city library offers multiple ways and approaches for the users to access the repository
of books, the Lilavati Lalbhai Library only has a single staircase core that seems as if an
afterthought in the design of the library. Being the only staircase core of the library, it becomes
a crucial transitional element that defines the approach and functioning of the library, due to the
high dependency of its user on the only staircase core. Stuttgart City Library in this context
offers much more freedom to the users to browse through its much more spread over repository
on its periphery.
0.3.2: Concluding the comparative analysis by establishing the diversity in the library
typology

The Lilavati Lalbhai Library caters to many diverse functional spaces as compared to the public,
Stuttgart City Library, which serves to cater as a public library for the city. This diverse set of
functions and user demographics heavily direct the design process to design different nature of
spaces that are influenced by different exploration with respect to its architectural elements that
help in space making. This diversity gives a better understanding of the relation of context, user
demographic, function-driven design process, architectural elements as means of space making
through the diversity that both the libraries provide. It further explains the diversity in the
typology of Library spaces as spaces of learning and knowledge with respect to the users,
context, and architectural elements.

0.3.2: Conclusions derived through the study

⦁ The inferior and intimate spaces that the Lilavati Lalbhai Library has is derived through a
synergy between the functionality of spaces, the user demographic of an academic institute, the
context of the institutional complex, and the architectural elements that make these nature of
spaces
⦁ On the contrary, the Stuttgart City Library offers a sense of spaces that are voluminous and open
which is based on the factors that vary from Lilavati Lalbhai Library, in a sense, caters to a
larger demographic of users to offer a different set of functionality of spaces and have a different
approach to the context as well as spaces inside which led to diversity in terms of architectural
elements in both the cases.
⦁ The diversity in the library typology of spaces of learning and knowledge can be correlated to
the varying factors that drive the design processes of these structures, mainly being the user
demographic that it caters to, the functionality of spaces that it offers, the contexts that it
corresponds to and the architectural elements that cultivate the nature of spaces that it requires.
⦁ All of the aforementioned factors go hand in hand in the design process of these structures that
derive a wide range of spaces that coexisting the realm that the library typology has become as
spaces of learning and knowledge.
0.4.1: Bibliography

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0.4.2: Image Credits

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