Then you may take a month or two for the preliminary conferences between the librarian and his adviser; a month or two for conferences between them and the architect; a month or less for inspection of other libraries. At some time during this process two trips may be taken to other libraries, the first rather early, as soon as your ideas have taken form enough for you to know what you want to look at; the other toward the end, when your need of further information is fully defined. Where to go, whom to take on your tour of inspection, will depend on what funds you can spare. Details of furniture, location of lights, and so on, may be deferred, to be taken up during building. A month or less is needed to submit results to the committee. After their approval has been obtained, the architect must prepare working drawings and specifications, invite bids for work, wait two or three weeks for them, and even then you are ready to break ground on your building in half the time and with half the expense, for fees, traveling, and all, that a competition would have required.
Extras. One good result of this thorough study of every detail in advance should be, that no new wants or serious omissions occur to you when you come to build.
But if you do not plan so thoroughly as to cover all contingencies, expect to find something to be changed or added as you go on, confronting you with those “extra charges” which often appall builders of dwelling houses. Still if your oversights follow to plague you, your architect can here help you with the contractor, and can generally find savings enough in “perfectly good” alternatives in labor or material to balance the cost of the extras. If they finally get ahead of you, and materially increase the cost, either architect or librarian is at fault—someone did not plan well ahead.
Model. The last step of planning may well be the preparation by the architect of a sketch-model in clay for the building committee. This shows the proportions and visualizes all features far more clearly then floor plans, elevations and sections on paper can do. If the sketch-model can show both elevation and sections, it will bring to the librarian his allocation of rooms in final review, and bring out to all concerned, librarian, architect, committee and public, just how the building will “work” and how it will look.
D.
FEATURES
This Book contains considerations which affect the whole building. Note especially Light, Heat, Ventilation.