Weave

Library & Classroom Addition for Dominican University College

The Dominican University College was first established in Ottawa in 1900, under the Dominican Order of Catholicism, a division of Roman Catholicism. At the DUC, the brothers believe a library should be a major investment in something precious, and that every space of a library should be accessible, even if certain books go unread. Knowledge is attained simply by browsing a library; it is a space to see and touch the books. The library is described as a diverse, international, and community space, where one can be alone with the books, but also in discussion with others. It should not be a space where one wants to spend his or her life, but a place which forms one for the outside world, where real things are happening. 

By setting up the library addition as a central core to the existing DUC building, it can be accessed and viewed from all four sides. Weave unites the three types of space we create to control our environment, the intellectual space, emotional space, and physical space, and combines them to become a single entity. The external classroom addition also intertwines the Dominicans to the community fabric, by attracting passersby through the site as a means of shortcut.