 This is the third floor and we're going to hear about a student project to reimagine some of the spaces on the third floor. And one of the students has kindly agreed to come talk to us about their project. So I'm going to turn around and introduce you to Sydney Young who is here to tell us about her vision of the Fine Arts Library of the Future. So Sydney, can you just give us a little what your major is and then a little bit about this project? So my name is Sydney Young. I am currently a senior in the Interior Design major here at Ohio University. And essentially this project was to reimagine the Fine Arts Library of the Future. We just happened to use our floor plan here at Ohio University. It was really accessible and it was really nice because we were able to actually go in and look at the space and get a sense of the size. But the overall design is meant to fit in any academic library any matter. Okay. So one of the most important things that you put into your poster and your design, like what should we take away? So a lot of the research that I did in order to come up with the design was based on three main ideas, collaboration, connection and engagement. So I think each of those ideas are very important in an academic library and especially in a Fine Arts Library. For instance, like collaboration, if you're working on a project, I feel like often we're told to like keep secret and like don't tell anyone what you're doing because it's still your idea. But the idea of collaboration is so important because you can get so many new ideas. The more people you're talking to, the more ideas you're going to get and you can essentially just make your project endlessly better. Another important thing is connection. So I feel like in a library specifically, you really need connection not only to the space but to your resources and the things that you're able to get out of a library. The last thing is engagement. So really being able to come into a space and engage in your work and engage in other people in conversation is very important in academia and art. So what would you want to see furniture-wise or like architectural detail-wise to kind of facilitate that kind of engagement, connection and collaboration? Swing over here to your poster so people can see. Yeah, so for the project we had to highlight the three main spaces. I chose a group study room. I chose this space because I feel like almost any project that you have to work on is at some point you're going to need to really focus down with your group. You can have time and space and media and technology and resources to make your project as best as it can be. The second space that I focused in on that was really inspired by what people considered in a maker space. I renamed to a collaborative art lab or co-art lab for short. And essentially this space would be similar to what you see on the second floor here at Alden where you'd have glass windows on the outside. So people on the outside can see in. And then at the same time you'd have like we call them hot desks where you can come in and you can work on your project and someone else can come in and work on their project. But you're collaborating because you're seeing what they're doing and they're inspiring you through their work too. It also has good things such as like a photo backdrop if you needed to come in and take a good professional picture. You'd have resources like a 3D printer that would be a sink, drawing utilities, anything that you'd really need to enhance your work. The last space that I focused on that's been really controversial is the inclusion of the information desk on the third floor. But I decided to include not one but two. Two information desks in my design for the sole purpose of it being a connection point between patrons, patrons, and staff. They could be student led, but essentially it'd be a really good space for if you needed to rent a room or if you needed to rent materials like a drawing tablet or if you need a camera to just go and use and then make your space. And also be like a really good resource point if you need to just figure out how to do research or if you wanted to set up a time to meet with a librarian or figure out who your librarian is. Or even just general, how do I use the library? So how do you see this being different from like the space that already exists for students in a fine arts building? I feel like the space that I designed has a little bit better of a flow. Adding the second information desk utilizes this second entry point to more of a collaborative side of the library. Because I feel like this door kind of gets came into the library. From this side you have direct information and kind of pointers to where you need to go, direct you to what area of the library is going to help you work best. But yeah, I think just like the movement of this design and the accessibility of the spaces is a little bit better than we have currently set up. Okay. And you had mentioned how this installment itself is kind of similar to some of the ideas you had about, I think you called it the crit space up here. So what did you mean by? What the crit space and my design is specifically like the turning point in the library from where you kind of go to like more individualized work and to like the learning commons. So this space would essentially be like big board panels like this where you can have students and like classes come up and pin up their work and receive feedback on them and what people like about them and what they think could be better. But when it's not being used for a class, I definitely think it could be used for anyone. So if you're working in the makerspace and you make something and you're like, I just don't know about this. I don't know. You can go and you can pin it up, come back a couple days later to see if there's any comments about your work. See what people think about your work and it kind of just gives not only like more of like an art feel to the space that you're in, but it also really helps you academically. It's almost like an analog version of what we see social-wise where you can post things online and get feedback, but still good to have an analog option. Because it's like when you post something on social media, like who is it getting to? Maybe just your friends or maybe just your followers. When you post it in the library, it's anyone who passes by. And if someone sees something that's inspiring to me, they can take that little bit of knowledge with them just from that two-second interaction and take it with them for the rest of the day. All right. So anything else we should know about your, actually I'm curious about your material. What kind of material design would you want to see in this space? So particularly for mine, I picked a lot of more warmer colors where like the more social spaces, like I did include like a cafe specifically on the third floor. So you never have too much coffee? Never. And then also more like in this information area, it'd be more of like a hardwood floor. Because it'd be more like lounge space, you have like a really nice chair and kind of like contrast it with a hard surface. But maybe in the more like the spaces where you'd probably be spending like a lot of time working with groups or like working by yourself or like going through the stacks. They'd be like a softer carpet, kind of like what we have here, just like maybe a warmer color, other than... Okay. Yeah. And then I also picked this very specific acoustic panel. I really like the design of it. There's like the lines, very modern, very clean, but also adds like a good design aspect to it, which would be when you kind of see it here in the group study rooms where it would just help absorb sound, because they would be glass panels on the outside of these as well. Okay. So something to help absorb your group talking in a plus acoustical place. Sure, yeah. Anything else you want to tell us about your plans for the ideal library space, Fine Arts library space? I really hope, because like I know you guys are under your 10-year kind of like reconstruction. Like more of these like concepts that I talked about, because like I researched these, like they're obviously right problems. So I hope in my time here at Ohio University that I can see them. I definitely already seeing them, like especially with the reconstruction of like the second floor, like those spaces turning like the writing center into a nice space like that. It was really nice. But yeah, especially like this cohort lab, I think the way like I redesigned it instead of calling it the maker space, but having more open spaces like that be accessible to people and not just like by classroom reservation are very important. I love that idea. So what's next for you? What kind of projects are you working on in the future this semester? So this semester we just got a nice program for a project funded by Steelcase. It's actually like the annual Steelcase line competition. We don't know what Steelcase is. They're a furniture manufacturer in Michigan. They actually did some of this furniture here, like this lounge furniture. They designed this. I'm pretty sure we have a fair number of those around things like that around the library. Oh, the node chairs. Yes. Yeah. Room 323. Now I'm in an open office space, which if you've ever worked in an office, you know they can be really not fun. So our goal is to make that the best space for a real estate company to work in. Nice. I bet that will be quite the challenge. I think it will be fun because of research involved. Yes. All right. Well, thanks for sharing your ideas with us.