Archival Logistics,

Fernando Garrido Carreras

The Graduate School of Design archive, almost entirely digital, floats within a cheap but pristine motherboard as if it were about to fly away and become incomprehensible.

This project is characterized by two elements divided by a path and connected through a third element on top of them. The topography spills within the three elements, burying two of them underground.


In plan, the two volumes underground are rotated and placed in a very pragmatic fashion against the slope, obeying the contour lines. This pragmatism allows for a more extensive basement (5 meter in height) for the archive and another smaller one, the exhibition space (4 meter high basement), placed respecting a lower contour line, one meter below. The second floor on top works as a computer motherboard. It connects both basements and deals with their misalignments while also hosting all the administrative programs. Access to this top floor is limited to its back, where the slope allows it.

This floor contains the servers and hardware of the digital archive. The servers are located at the periphery, working as insulators, thus, the blind corrugated façade. The administrative offices receive light through two internal patios, providing light to the pit under as well.


The two separate basements allow for a public pit between them, which solves a problem of continuity within the site (a public park) towards Josep Lluis Sert’s house (300 meters north of the site) while allowing public access to the exhibition space at basement grade and a moment to look in the archive through a large window.

 

Author: Fernando Garrido Carreras.
Website: fernando-garrido.com
Location: Cambridge, USA.
University: Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Year: 2023