YOU Media
Collaborative Teen Library
YOU MEDIA PHILOSOPHY
The philosophy behind YOU Media encourages librarians, instructors, and mentors to meet with youth where they are at educationally, as opposed to relying on curriculums and pedagogy. This program helps kids to learn together as a part of their social networks, allowing for a large aspect of play, imagination, and experimentation
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The purpose of this project was to create a space within an existing library where teens can socialize, get homework help, play video games, and explore digital media. Design efforts were to be inspired and based off of "YOU Media", a program created within Chicago libraries that helps teens build digital skills through creative learning spaces. This allows them to cultivate their hobbies into careers.
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A close eye was kept on expenses as the funding for this public project came from taxpayers, grants, and private donations, A design solution was explored to balance the budget and find a design that adequately meets the needs of the end user
The concept behind this design is the fostering and enabling of learning and creativity. Spaces with bright, stimulating colors and patters will include a variety of unique and comfortable seating options, providing a stimulating and energetic learning environment for teens.
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The layout serves as both open and defined spaces. It offers several options for areas teens can study in, such as collaboration areas, and more secluded spaces for individual learning. Multi-use spaces and interchangeable seating/tables will allow for a variety io interactions.
Research & Inspiration
My research included a deep look into previous YOU Media projects and various collaborative workplaces/schools. I've seen more and more workplaces that incorporate several different spaces for employees/students to choose from. The reason for these designs comes from the ability to choice where you work. The ability to choose where you work and learn enhances the experience and focus, while boosting creativity. I took a lot of inspiration from this ad wanted to incorporate this practice into my design. Spaces ranging from comfortable and laid back for socializing, to secluded and quiet for homework and learning.
​The biggest inspiration I took from my research was the teens' level of enjoyment with being able to choose their own spaces to collaborate with others in their learning. I found a lot of multi-use spaces in office design, being able to transform a large area with breakout spaces into a group lecture or performance area. This was a large piece that I wanted to incorporate into my design. I also made myself a goal to create defined "spaces within a space." Considering I was given a large, open space to begin with, I needed to figure out how to keep an open concept while still achieving more defined workspaces.
Given an open, square floor plan, I had a lot of options to arrange each area that needed to be included within the space. My layout changed several times from the blocking phase, up until the refined plan. I also took my ceiling plan into consideration, as it helped define many of the open workspaces.
I maintained an open-concept floor plan while still isolating a variety of individual workspaces for teens.
I created a variety of seating models in Sketchup and Revit, for example, the stadium seating in the performance zone, and the reading alcoves in the nook and lounge zone.
Zoning, Annotations, & F,F,&E
Ceiling Plan & Isometric View
3D Perspective Views
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