UNDERGROUND LIBRARY PROJECT
An independent architectural concept by Jiace Zhao — September 2026
https://www.jc-zhao.com/projects/underground-library

WORKING TITLE AND AUTHORSHIP
This is a personal speculative study, not an official UC Berkeley commission, approved campus expansion or Harvard-affiliated project. Underground Library Project is a working title. Older labels visible within historical images belong to the design record.
Concept direction, site choice, program and iterative design decisions: Jiace Zhao. Substantial geometry, materials, code and presentation were produced with AI-assisted scripting, procedural Blender modeling and rendering.

THE PACKAGES
Architecture_Portfolio.pdf: 24-page editorial selection describing origin, site logic, iterations, plans, interiors, conceptual systems, method, sources and limitations.
Underground_Library_Project_Public.blend: optimized editable V6 derivative, approximately 93.84 MB. Current floors, campus, pavilion, retained pool and two-turn spiral are preserved. Obsolete archives were removed and packed textures capped at 368 pixels; close-up quality is lower than the full-resolution private master. Open in Blender 5.1 or a compatible later version. The original master is unchanged.
Underground_Library_Project_GLTF.zip: B1-B5, entrance, campus, landscape and representative vegetation exports, with shared texture files. Extract the whole archive and preserve relative folders. In Blender, use File > Import > glTF 2.0 and select the required .glb files. The website uses an orbit-inspection viewer, not a certified collision-free walkthrough. Lighting differs from the offline renders.
Graphics_01-07.zip: all 165 indexed original architectural graphics, including early versions, intermediate tests and superseded studies. V6 governs current interiors; retained V4-V5 exterior imagery describes the current entrance lineage.
Comparison_and_Cutaway.zip: newly produced matched-model before / after and current V6 exploded sectional axonometric.
layout-manifest.json: room and conceptual circulation data. It is not a construction model, access audit or life-safety schedule.
site-basis.zip: derived geographic data, accuracy schedule and dated source ledger for campus context.

HOW TO READ THE COMPARISON
Before and after use the same model camera, lighting and campus context. Before is a conceptual reconstruction obtained by removing the proposed intervention, not a contemporary site photograph or measured as-built record. Existing paths and landscaping remain model approximations. The scheme intends to add underground capacity while preserving surface through-movement; unchanged flow and increased usable floor area have not been quantitatively established.
The cutaway uses exploded spacing. Elevation labels refer to the un-exploded concept model, not surveyed campus elevations.

SOURCES AND RIGHTS
Campus geometry uses data by OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License (ODbL): https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright . The derived geographic database is supplied in site-basis.zip under the applicable ODbL share-alike terms. See the included source ledger for query bounds, projection and transformation notes. This attribution also applies to the campus component of the rendered and model outputs.
USGS 3D Elevation Program terrain and 2018 LiDAR-informed height inputs: https://www.usgs.gov/3d-elevation-program . Interpolated terrain and roof-height estimates are not a survey.
Poly Haven scanned materials, representative plants and daylight environment use CC0 assets: https://polyhaven.com/license . These are not scans of Berkeley's own finishes or individual campus trees.
Three.js viewer: MIT license, included at ../viewer/THREE_LICENSE.txt . Draco decoder: Google Draco / Apache 2.0, license included at ../viewer/DRACO_LICENSE.txt . No external reference photographs or character portraits are republished here.
The project-authored study and presentation are credited to Jiace Zhao, with AI-assisted production disclosed above. Third-party data retain their own terms; this note does not claim exclusive rights over third-party material or over outputs where copyright protection may not apply.

REPRESENTATION LIMITS
Geodata-informed campus context is not a surveyed digital twin. Detailed landmark elements are interpretations of published material. Gardner Main Stacks already occupies underground campus space; its exact boundary, the proposed envelope and new interfaces remain unresolved.
Structure, seismic performance, groundwater, excavation, waterproofing, accessibility, egress, acoustics, daylight, energy, cost and a 100-year service life have not been professionally validated. This material is not suitable for construction.
The stored V6 verification records 924 supported route samples and 15 doorway-centerline checks. These are limited geometric checks, not proof of complete building performance or navigability.
For original source links and the complete design account, read the PDF and the website Sources section.
