Hi there!

Yes, underground levels also count towards the total area of the building.

Unless otherwise stated you should consider this to always be the case (not only for this competition), otherwise you could just go 5 levels underground keeping a minimum entrance at ground level and say your project is only 50 square meters, which would not be true.

Hope this makes sense and answers your question 😉

Hi there Architecturalement!

No, organizing and tidying up exterior spaces for uses which people would naturally give them anyway will not count towards the proposes built up area. Any building should be considerate with its most immediate surroundings, so feel free to treat those spaces as part of your project (without them counting towards the total area).

Hello @Arquitecthores,

Yes, you can add new areas to your project that were not requested on the brief, you can remove others that were, or you can change the suggested dimensions of any of them, but don’t do it lightly.

The brief was carefully crafted by arkitekturo and the suggested areas and sizes are a good example of what a complete and proportionate project for this brief could look like. You are free to challenge the suggested areas, as long as you have a solid reason to do so. If you want your project to revolve around a certain area and you need to make that space larger for emphasis, by all means do it. If you read a study, found a piece of news or otherwise have specific information about how that particular city/neighborhood/site might evolve in the future and want to include new areas to your project that will help it adapt to those future developments, go for it. But always make sure your presentation clearly shows (either in drawings or writing) why you chose to do that so that the jury can understand (and possibly reward) your reasons and overall design process.

This is an ideas competition, so ideas, in all their shapes and colors, are welcome. If you believe the final result will be a better project by making changes to the brief you should (the professional world is full of examples of architects modifying a brief and winning the competition), but it is key to remember that any changes you make must be made thinking about the project and the people who will be using it, not your personal preferences, and you must present these changes in a way that the jury can understand.

Hi there!

You are free to use any other drawings or graphic material you can get, that’s not a problem. What we mean when we say that the material we provide is the only one valid within the context of this competition is that if there are any discrepancies between the material we provided and the one you found elsewhere, then the one we provided prevails.

Imagine for example that a new street has recently been created, and one drawing shows it and the other one doesn’t. In a case like that whatever the drawing we provided shows is what should be considered as real within the context of the competition.

Hope this answers your question 🙂

Hello Diana,

The floorplans of the Paul Galvin Library would be nice to have indeed. Unfortunately, we did extensive research ourselves and were unable to find them. We even contacted the IIT and SOM about getting them but didn’t hear back. If we do, we’ll sure make them available to download on the site.

However, considering how the Library is inspired in the Crown Hall and Mies’s concept of Universal Space (which we talked about on some of the lecture and which you can also learn more about in this YouTube video) it would not surprise us that the main floor is a fully open space divided only by furniture. Again we do not know this for sure, but it’s an educated guess 😉

Halfway through your studies then. Congratulations! It’s definitely an excellent time to get involved in competitions and other extracurricular activities that can help broaden your knowledge and give you a better idea of what you’ll like to do in the future and the kind of architects you guys want to become.

Glad to have you on board! Don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions 😉

Hi! No, you cannot double the areas by adding more floors to the building. The suggested areas are total built up areas, you can divide them in several floor or not, that is up to your design, but adding more floors does not allow you to add more square meters to the project. Hope that makes sense 😉

Hello Luis and Natalia! We love to see teams made up by students from different Schools, and in your case, also in different countries! That’s amazing 🙂

So our warmest welcome to the Mies Memorial Library competition. Cant wait to see what you come up with for this brief!