Top down building

Tony Tallent of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County writes about "Building from the Top Down":

I want to build a library from the ground up…well, really from the top down. What I mean by this is not beginning our building with bricks and mortar but with philosophy and commitment so that we are always poised to experiment, ready to adapt and have more limitless thinking and action... the invisible that strengthens the visible.

This is right on -- our library is doing a facility study right now; we began by getting community vision for future library services and are working to get a sense of the most important "top down" criteria for planning. The architects will use these to develop some scenarios. Form follows function, function follows philosophy.