San Antoni Library

The San Antoni Library is a very modern design.  It is a rectangular building that uses a void in the building as a passageway to the exterior courtyard.  In addition its facade is a very dark (black) reflective skin with different screen shading devices.  This is a very sophisticated, decorative, and sustainable design technique that helps unify the exterior elements and shade the outside of the building.  The black reflective skin also helps to unify the different parts of the building because the building is made up of several rectangular volumes at varying heights.  Each space inside the building has a view to the exterior courtyard or the street.  The drawing above helps to show spacial relationships between the courtyard and the interior spaces of the building.  The drawing also helps to show the atmosphere of the exterior courtyard as well as show the shape of the library.  In the drawing you can also get a sense of the large contrast between the building itself and the surroundings.  However a photograph would much better show the reflective materials of the buildings facade.  Photographs also help capture more of reality unless the drawing is a high quality rendering.  Drawings help show some of the aspects of a space, such as the San Antoni Library, however they often lack a sense of realism and the actual mood of a space, which a photograph or just first hand experience can provide. (For example, when this was sketched is was done in the rain, however the drawing doesn't reflect this but the photograph does.)  This drawing is effect however in establishing spacial and scale relationships of this library and its courtyard.