New atmosphere means more visitors

In 2005, we took several library renovation projects in our hands, mostly with similar aims of creating new atmosphere and adding newer facility inside the library that might help increase the visitor to the library. At that time, people would still look for another place to read and study rather than in a library, especially a campus library.

Our first library project was the Miriam Budiardjo Resource Center (MBRC) at FISIP UI, Depok. It's located on the 2 out of 3 storeys building, where the resources were kept as hardcopies, books and literatures. We created new layouts and vertical circulation inside the library, with an integrated concept of 'inside a womb'. The ambiance was set to be warm and condusive for people to get their information from the library. After the renovation, MBRC was visited almost four times the visitors before the renovation. As the students increase rapidly, now the MBRC would need more space upto four times the original area, and this has become our next project of extending the MBRC. Even when the resources have become more virtual, the need of new atmosphere is still adequate.
Our second project was the renovation of 4 split levels FIB Library, the library with the most complete and variative collections in UI Depok. It has manuscripts, microfilms, ancient books, and collections from many culture accross Indonesia and even the world. We created new circulation, both for the visitors and the administrators/librarians, where they can reach each continuous floor more easily than they previously have. A concept of 'hypertext' was proposed in order to help them adjust with new layouts and circulations, especially the self-service exchanging of 'texts or resources'. Again, the new atmosphere for a library managed to increase the number of visitors, as well as the interest for browsing further.
The next project was the renovation of 4 storeys FKM Library. In this project, we are faced with multiple storey large area with limited collections of books, and not so many furnitures. The key was to create more open circulation, focusing on the entrance (service counter and catalogues) and the comfortable reading and browsing areas. A touch of purple (represent the faculty identity) and soft pastel furnitures, have made this spacious library to have a sense of warmth and calm, especially in some reading spots where people can also enjoy the scenic view of PAUI building.

Recently, we have the opportunity to design the interior renovation of Sespim POLRI's Library in Lembang. Although quite sceptical at first, the project was then become more realistic over a very short period of time, and thus became interesting. Again, the goals are similar, and our method was unnecessarily new. The room is large in volume (high ceiling, wide range), the collections were plenty yet unvariative, and they need more convinient space to read. The formal and standard guidelines were then replaced by fresh and colorful look of furnitures and partitions, and lucky for us...they agreed. The new library for the high-ranked officers should reflect also their dynamic personality as well as the spirit of go international. Fresh colors walls and partitions, with a contrast from warm wood finished furnishing, have made this library the new icon for the spirit of reformation in POLRI.