Abstract/Summary

This work presents in text and images the original design research project I undertook Autumn 2012 at the Yale School of Architecture with AOC Architects. The project is for a publicly-accessible storage facility in Swindon to house the sound and media archives of the British Library. The proposal was made following detailed research into the British Library’s current facilities and storage strategies, whereupon a new strategic framework for dispersed storage throughout the UK was proposed. From there, a detailed design proposal was developed that would provide collection storage alongside a variety of performance spaces to showcase the collection and facilitate public interaction and increased institutional transparency. An innovative brick screen façade was developed based on the iconic British Library gateway in St Pancras. In the interplay between repetitive storage and highly specific viewing spaces, between clip-on IKEA-like sheds and warm, human-scaled brick, the project explores the oscillation between the generic and the specific, the monumental and the intimate—oppositions inherent to the uniquely contemporary intersection of large-scale storage with the preservation of cultural heritage.