Global architecture firm Gensler has an impressive portfolio, to say the least, gathering the work of thousands of the world’s leading architects and designers and arranging towering glass and steel megastructures right alongside new university buildings, renovated interiors, and spruced up bars and restaurants. Despite the breadth of its designs, we were still impressed by the firm’s choice to award Pratt interior design student Tina Uznanski with the 2012 Gensler Brinkmann Scholarship. Uznanski secured her prized academic scholarship and internship at Gensler’s London office through her proposal for a renovation of the Clinton Hill Community Library in Brooklyn, New York.

In an official statement seen on Bustler, Gensler hailed Uznanski’s proposal for capturing the spirit of the firm and its will to “partner with…clients to deliver design innovations that transform their organizations.” The flexible program, composed of ‘shifting stacks,’ allows library-goers to immerse themselves in a fantastic variable landscape of books.  But what we found most refreshing was Uznanski’s architectural drawings and the presentation of her ideas, which uses collage to communicate a whimsical return to simpler times, when printed words on a page were the height of information transmission. Continue.

In a time when it can be impossible to differentiate slick 3D renderings from photographed reality, Uznanski offers a vision that glorifies the cream-colored cards of Dewey Decimal and associates the contemporary library experience with wide-eyed, early 20^th century glitz and glamour. Typewritten lettering is used to explain everything from the concept, the plan, the structure, and the program, all rendered in a series of hodge-podged images that elucidate ideas while remaining wonderfully abstract. With a definite nod to the collages of the Bauhaus school, Uznanski’s drawings combine ink, watercolor, and cut-and-pasted images and text to create an alluring atmosphere for her Gatsby-era figures that begs to be molded by the most fanciful of imaginations.

[All images via Bustler]

by Kelly Chan

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tagged architectural drawings, architecture school, bauhaus, brooklyn, collage, Competition, drawings, education, Gensler, Gensler Brinkmann Scholarship, library, pratt, pratt institute, renovation, Scholarship, Tina Uznanski

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