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I never used to go to the library and now that I like I know what's going to be in it
I think it's going to be a very good library
Maxim Laroussi: Well the project was initiated by the Dublin City Council. Which the idea was to put together
an architect and designer. We were put together to work with the kids in 5th grade in St.
Gabriel's in Ballyfermot in conjunction with the local library, the Ballyfermot Library,
which is now under the construction. So we started to do a series of three workshops
and the first one was kind of interesting in the way that we wanted straight away to
talk about design with the children and we asked them to bring an object.
First of all we had to bring in objects from home, it could be anything. We looked and
talked about how they were designed, and how they were designed to be safe and comfortable
for other people. My friend Leia, she brought in a *** bag and Tia brought in a remote.
Ré Dubhthaigh: The big insight that came out of the research and from all the ideas, idea generation parts
of the work was about different zones for different age groups. How the library could
be structured to respond to different needs of different subsets of users. So today we
had the grown up / adult zone, you know with a little bit more quiet, a little bit more
reflective. We had the kids and toddler zone using a mat really a space where mothers with
young children could come to the library and share and have a chance to read and engage with the wider community
We decided on probably just a little play area, and we decided on some slides and toys
and like soft chairs that like babies and soft shapes and stuff.
In looking at and thinking about how do we communicate and how do you reframe the library
one thing the children did look at was reordering the shelves and reordering the layout and
using height as an indicator of the different types of books and the different kinds of
resources which should be available. So at the very bottom toddlers and young children,
and then at middle levels of shelves and shelving kind of teenagers and then higher up adults.
And that's really perceptive because if you actually walk into a Tescos or an Easons you'll
see that's actually how magazines are sold to us.
Well we measured shelves and we seen, we kind of got the size about the size about the size
of a baby and we seen would they be able to a reach the shelf if the shelf was up like here
Well I always walk my dog every day so like someone that's used to walking their dog they
could do it for the library and they bring the books to the person and like get their
address as well. Because they could ring the library and tell them their address and they
could give the address to the person and they could deliver the books to the person who's sick
If we could use like horses like they do over in America, like police use horses we could
use horses to deliver books.
My other friend Vicky says what if we use an owl just like out of Harry Potter?
Well we, we just put up our load of ideas that we came up with and we just got a load
of stickers and today we waited for all them to come in and we went around and gave them
orange stickers and then we let them all vote. and then whichever doesn't have any stickers
on it we probably won't have but do you the other ones like the etcher, see the way that
has loads of votes we'll probably get them in the library.
It's an absolutely brilliant opportunity for the class. It was something they would never
have come across themselves before. It's something even as a teacher we would not have had the
opportunity to teach them about. They got to meet designers and architects in a great
way that came to them and engaged with them in the classroom that very much brought design
to them and opened up a whole new world that would never have come across before. They
were allowed to let their imagination run wild, but that their imagination then led
to some really practical ideas that even we've heard librarians say they would never have
thought of after 30 years of working in a library.
Ré and Maxim really helped us and kind of like we started off on a little, on like something
little but now it's really good. And sneak peek day was brilliant.
Designing the library was really interesting, like finding out what people liked. Like when we made the book with
all the questions in it I asked my neighbour and it was really good to find out what they liked as well
I think it's really going to help Ballyfermot the new library.