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Digital Media Library Monte Sinai School
By : MAYER HASBANI
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 15th edition
Discipline : Interior Design : Grand Winner
Categories : Education, Institution & Healthcare / High School & College : Gold Certification, Platinum Winner
To the southwest of Mexico City is located the Monte Sinaí School, an institution of more than 60 years that has trained guys in their primary and secondary education. The design of the digital media library arose from the identification of an underused space of the school, a remaining area in the basement of the auditorium of approximately 4,000 sq. m that was adjacent to the elementary building and some computer rooms.
The project opens up new circulations and connects the different levels of the school through new stairs, turning the epicentre of the school towards this area. The media library divides the spaces by age groups and uses the height of the ceilings at heritage, computer area and steps, furniture and graphic design to highlight this distinction.
The media library has wooden steps that break the emptiness of a great double height that dominates the space, creating a more welcoming scale and inviting a multiplicity of uses and positions to encourage students to meet and hang. When we reach the end of the wooden bleachers, a reading and study room connects the area to the classrooms and other study rooms. Here, the media library shows off its great height with an industrial aesthetic ceiling that achieves a special rhythm by combining the front and back of the perforated sheets that balance the scale of the place.
On the other hand, by reducing the height due to the original structure of the building, the existing dimensions are used to create a library where furniture, walls and floor are bathed in a striking yellow. In the last space we find the children's media library, where the furniture was specially designed for the scale and use of the children at the school.
A new classroom was designed with the Makerspace format, this format is based on an educational laboratory, where it is explored and works with all kinds of tools: 3D printers, carpentry, textiles, robotics and cooking in order to make theoretical knowledge practical. The project reinforces the new educational conception that proposes to integrate knowledge through experimentation.
These new classrooms are related to the corridors and the access plaza with glass walls that allow students who are in another space to observe how learning is taking place within these classrooms and laboratories, becoming a more transcendent event than that of the classroom traditional. Curiosity is opened to other age and interest groups.
The furniture and different facilities of the place are what ignite the spark of collaboration and exchange. All the technical aspects that allow and promote the study in this new space were taken care of the lighting design and acoustic control make working in these new facilities very comfortable and efficient. Given that the public the school serves is children and youth, colour was used boldly; saturating with intensity the transitional spaces or where little time is spent and balancing it more in the spaces of longer stay; resulting in a jovial, professional and cheerful space.
Collaboration
