KING FAHAD NATIONAL LIBRARY BY GERBER ARCHITEKTEN

The new national library of Saudi Arabia is located in Riad directly next to the Fasilia Tower of Sir Norman Foster.

The square new building encases the old library, which holds the archives like a treasure chest. The planning aims to convert the old library in combination with the new one.

This creates a quadratic building with a side length of 120 metres. The old roof will be a reading room, whereas its newly designed dome remains visible above the flat roof of the new building.

A three-dimensional steel wire construction serves as an external sun protection. The climate in Riad mainly exists of sunshine and outside temperature of around 50°C in summer times.

The wish of the architects is a steep membrane façade around the building which combines the necessary sun protection with a transparent view to the outside.

An optimization of the membrane façade to the local sun situation was only possible with complex, three dimensional light calculations.

The ventilation and cooling of the building is planned with level ventilation and floor cooling.

So the thermal comfort can be extremely improved and the energy effort reduces – this is unique and innovative in the Arabic area. Its white membrane interprets Arabic traditions technologically and culturally in a modern way.

Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 
Architect: Eckhard Gerber 

Project Manager: Thomas Lücking 
Project Team: Tiran K. Driver, Nicola Gerber, Thomas Helms, Till Müller (LA) Kerstin Tulke, René Koblank, Olaf Ballerstedt, Nils Kummer, Britta Alker, Alexandra Kranert, Henrike Schlinke, Michael Schlegel, Ulrich Scheinhardt, Jörg Schoeneweiß, Beate Mack, Sabine Diegritz (LA), Stefan Lemke et al. 
Gross area: 68.500 m² 
Volume: 452.000 m³ 
Year: 2007 – 2010 
Client:Königreich Saudi-Arabien vertr. durch die Arriyadh Development Authority
Competition: 2002 - 1st Prize

FOLKWANG LIBRARY BY MAX DUDLER

“Folkwang University of the Arts is home to one of the largest musicological collections in Germany. Until now, its inventory of approximately 190,000 items of sheet music, sound recordings, images, books and other media has been stored in various archives and libraries across the region.

But now, musicological items from three institutions - Folkwang University, the former Library of Musicology at the Ruhr University Bochum as well as the music education department of the University Duisberg-Essen - have been brought together under a single roof, in a new building designed by Swiss-born architect Max Dudler. Situated on the Werden campus, the library was inaugurated at the end of September 2012. Folkwang University of the Arts is North Rhine Westphalia’s college of art and music.

Its main campus is housed in the former Benedictine abbey of St. Ludgerus in Essen-Werden, situated in the southern Ruhr Valley. The small 8th century site was extended into a princely baroque residence in the 18th century, arranged around a magnificent courtyard (Cour d’honneur). The construction of the new library on the south side of the courtyard by Max Dudler replaces a 19th century military hospital building demolished in 1969.

In 2006, Max Dudler won the design competition organized by the Duisburg branch of the Building and Real Estate Management Authority, North Rhine Westphalia. The project was generously supported by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation. In 1811, while under French occupation, a prison was set up in Werden Abbey. The Prussians extended this and erected a hospital building on the south side of the courtyard. Upon the demolition of the hospital building, the remaining ensemble of buildings looked unbalanced.

Without reproducing the original shape of the prison, the new building encloses this side of the courtyard with its voluminous crystalline structure. The new building’s eastern side adjoins the so-called administrative wing of the old abbey. The volume of the new building corresponds approximately to that of the Prussian wing across the courtyard. Folkwang Library was conceived as a monolithic body built atop the level base of an old rough stone wall. Max Dudler’s concept for the building is based on the idea of the ‘museum showcase’: An exterior shell protecting the valuable contents within.

The functional areas are grouped around the reading room, which lies at the center of the building. The book shelves are arranged in strict order around this room, thereby lending scale and structure to the building as a whole. There are two entrances to the library: The main entrance is from the courtyard via a flight of external steps, designed to approximate the style of the entrances to the other buildings leading off from the courtyard. The library’s other entrance on the Klemensborn serves as an emergency exit. Lending desks, media cubicles, an administration area and cloakroom are situated on the ground floor; the reading room on the first floor. The compact archives are housed in the library’s basement.

The design of the building’s facade was developed in collaboration with the photographer Stefan Müller. Every pane of glass in the facade depicts a large format close-up of a quarry. These photographs reproduce the unhewn stone in its original size. The photographic works were applied directly onto the glazing using a special technique. In keeping with the elemental meaning of the number twelve in music, twelve motives were pieced together into an overall composition.

As with the scagliola technique of the Renaissance used to create stucco marbling, this special photographic technique creates the illusion of the facade being fashioned from the stone material itself. At the same time, a tension is created between the imagery of the textured stone and the flat surface of the glass, reminiscent of the historical sgraffito technique, whereby a graphic embossing is etched into a smooth plaster surface. The new building’s smooth glass surfaces create the perfect impression of a polished monolith.

But this is called into question by the translucency of the building’s exterior, thereby playfully breaking the boundaries both from inside and out. Silhouettes of people can be seen beyond the facade. The interior is bathed in a soft, filtered light. In the evening, the building illuminates the courtyard outside. The building comprises a reinforced concrete skeleton with concrete cores to provide stiffening. The glass facade is attached to the building’s projecting structural slabs using the mullion-transom system. The concrete pillars are shaped and positioned according to the dimensions of the book shelves.

The pillars are clad in cherry wood, which is also used for the shelving in the reading room. Not all the pillars are load-bearing. Some are used as part of an ‘inert’ air-conditioning system. With the ventilation pipes being channeled directly through the reinforced concrete ceilings, this building material’s potential as a heat sink is thereby put to good use. Through coupling this with a heat exchanger, an innovative contribution to energy efficiency is achieved.

The library furnishings – such as its tables, chairs and shelves – were also designed by Max Dudler.”Project Description from Max Dudler:

 

Location: Essen-Werden, Germany

Architect: Max Dudler

Project Manager: Alexander Bonte

General Planners during the Construction Period: Nattler Architects

Structural Engineers: Leonhardt, Andrä und Partner – Beratende Ingenieure VBI, GmbH, Berlin

Building Services: Winkels Behrens Pospich – Ingenieure für Haustechnik GmbH Münster

Construction Physics / Acoustics: Müller-BBM GmbH Berlin

Gross Surface Area: 1,707 m2

Year:2009-2011

THE AMBIENT EXCHANGE BY SYNTHETIQUES AND MINUS ARCHITECTURE STUDIO {MAS}

Libraries are increasingly the places in which culture is produced as well as collected and disseminated.  The Ambient Exchange promotes a culture of collaboration, creative inquiry and community engagement through provision of functional and exuberant spaces that engage the strong cultural and craft traditions of the Finnish built environment.

The Ambient Exchange engages its incredible site, and the broader city, by placing its cultural and shared amenities at the level of the park and the street.  The building is treated as an extension of the site topography, pulling people up into the spaces that encourage interaction and collaboration among the various users. 

Views of the Parliament and cultural amenities of the city drive the library’s formal and functional arrangements. The proposed structural system is predominantly cross-laminated timber panels.  These panels are milled to both exude the inherent warmth of wood, and to absorb and translate the varying patterns of weather systems. 

The result is a continuously changing interior luminous environment that responds to both the activities of the users in the various collaborative spaces and the daylighted quiet spaces for reading and study that animate the perimeter. Ramping floors with platforms for meeting rooms, collection, and other programmatic spaces promote easy circulation for both the patrons and library materials. 

The open plan spaces, accentuated by nodes for meeting, teaching, learning and interaction, reinforce the library as a space for collaboration and the development of new ideas.  Visitors to the library will easily navigate the project, discovering the programs and opportunities provided by this most public of cultural institutions.

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Architect: Synthetiques and minus Architecture studio {MAS}

Principals: Joshua M. Taron (Synthetiques), Jason S. Johnson (minusArchitecture Studio)

Project Team: Jodi James, Matthew Parker, Mahdiar Gaffarian, Erin Faulkner de Gordillo, Bahareh Fathi

Year: 2012

Competition: Helsinki Public Library

SAINT-EUSTACHE LIBRARY BY ACDF*

"Il nuovo edificio sarà il ponte tra la città e la natura, tra la tranquillità evocata dai fiumi e la vita frenetica della città.” Con queste parole il Sindaco di Saint-Eustache, a nord di Montréal in Canada ha presentato nel 2010 il progetto della nuova biblioteca.

Un progetto che simboleggia la riconciliazione tra la forma urbana attuale di Saint-Eustache, e la storia del luogo lungo il fiume. Il nuovo edificio funziona come un ponte tra la cultura, città e natura, la tranquillità e il movimentodella comunità.

 La biblioteca si trova lungo il fiume Îles Mille al crocevia di due importanti strade urbane con una posizione geografica vantaggiosa e funzionale a divenire il cuore culturale della città con una proposta culturale che raddoppia nelle dimensioni la biblioteca preesistente, non è più conforme agli standard di qualità riconosciuti per le biblioteche pubbliche in Québec

La proposta progettuale si basa sull'idea di "vivere insieme", promuovendo lo scambiocontinuo tra gli utenti della biblioteca, il personale, e gli abitanti di Saint-Eustache. Un luogo d’incontro tra cultura e socialità che diventa un importante centro urbano e si adatta alle necessità di una comunità in crescita.

La biblioteca è dotata di uno spazio polifunzionale che può ospitare mostre ed eventi anche per ragazzi e bambini, ai quali sono state dedicate apposite sale lettura.

È dotata di postazioni internet, aree gioco e di allattamento con arredi appositamente studiati da condividere tra genitori e figli creando un ambiente confortevole e familiare.

L'edificio offre una vista unica del fiume Îles Mille, con una luminosità eccezionale. La sua architettura integra diversi principi eco-compatibili, con un’attenzione al risparmio energetico e con l'utilizzo di materiali di qualità per garantire la sostenibilità del progetto.

Il concetto volumetrico del progetto è basato su un semplice tubo estruso rettangolare che viene piegato due volte. A ciascuna estremità del tubo elevata,superfici vetrate aprire completamentealla vista sul fiume a livello delle cime degli alberi abbondanti.

Unasala di lettura è a sbalzo di 3,5 metrisopra la riva del fiume in pendenza, rafforzando i punti di vista e fornendo copertura per la terrazza esterna.

La finestratura e l'articolazione dei due prospetti laterali è strategicamente minima, ponendo una maggiore enfasi sulla trasparenza della parte anteriore e posteriore del progetto.

 

Location: Saint-Eustache, Canada
Architects: ACDF* Architecture
Design Team: Maxime Frappier, Joan Renaud, Laurence Lebeux, Martin Champagne, Marc-André Plourde, Matthew Belaen, Robert Dequoy, Laurence Lessard, Véronique Taillefer
Structure: SDK
Civil Engineering: Marchand Houle
Landscape: Plannex
General Contractor: OPRON Construction
Area: 2,600 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: Courtesy of ACDF* Architecture

HELSINKI LIBRARY BY DJURIC TARDIO ARCHITECTES

Just as the roots of the trees are deeply anchored in the ground, the books and their pages, forged by these trees, are deeply anchored in and are representative of Culture.

Initially we traverse these roots and gradually journey through the knowledge they contain and protect, until we reach the evergreen canopy. We pause there, in order to meditate, discover and read the books we have encountered and brought.

This modern Library is  like a prime and basic emblem of the Finnish identity, culture and know-how, fruit of the most accomplished wood construction technology. This technology gives birth to an extraordinary building that works in accordance with the landscape whilst also transporting the user to another place - like the imaginary voyage of the reader who is transported by the books.

A sustainable building, oriented and designed to benefit from light and sunlight. In other words, taking advantage of its environment to limit energy consumption. This building is a symbol of new technology, in avant-garde energy and numeric domain, a national pride : books will be digital and readable on-line everywhere. However original books will also be available for traditional reading in the « Tower of Knowledge ».

A wood construction, inspired by centuries of Finnish know-how. A wood curved by the man and harvested in regularly replanted forests. The big wooden masses, symbolizing the roots in the ground, shelter a part of the program and are located in confined areas that are less energy-hungry. The masses organize the building into 3 distinct areas : the Lobby and the common programs, the Library, the Cinema and Exhibition Space.

The Library is made up of a double concentric ramp around a tower of books, the « Tower of Knowledge ». The faster circulation is allowed by the ramp running along the inner face of the shelves, that creates the wall of the tower. This vertical circulation permits a shortcut to thematic shelves of the bookcase but also to the archives.

The external and slower ramp, is punctuated with thematic reading and viewing areas. It gives access to the external face of the shelves in which free viewing books and reviews are stocked. The ramp starts in the ground floor, by the Children’s world. Then the ramp goes on through the thematic spaces. As in the rest of the building, WiFi connections to the Library data base will be installed. This will allow the consultation of all the books from the digital pads.

These 2 ramps lead to one of the Winter Gardens on the last floor, in a vegetated area, under a vault made of TEXLON inflated cushions. All the access to services will be clearly visible at first sight, from the great, crossing and see-through height in the centre of the building. The reception, the Books Bar, the Self Service, access to the bookshield, to the Children’s world and to the Polyvalent Room, the path to the Cinema and to the Bookshop, bars, restaurants and their outside terraces will be organized in one big and only common space.

This space will also welcome events and information pop-up. We will access the Library reception and the first floor Fab Lab  from this big stairway. Then directly to the Music Centre, on the second floor. The second floor Polyvalent Room centre  will be reached from the lobby, more southern, with the second stairway or elevators. From this part of the lobby, which has a bar/restaurant and a bookshop, a connection to annex services like Living Lab and Meeting Areas (respectively first and second floor) will be made.

In the third part of the building, the most south-facing toward the station, the Cinema and permanent and temporary Exhibition Space will be installed. In the South-East of the building there is an access dedicated to the Cinema centre, different from the other accesses in the building, which will facilitate the use of the Cinema, Polyvalent Room, panoramic restaurant and last floor sauna, after the Library closes.

The 350 seat Cinema will have 2 superimposed panoramic spaces accessible from the stairs or elevators. The first one, VIP space, will be able to receive receptions, dinners and banquets. The second one, on the third floor will offer a bar. A shop will make the urban South-East connection of the building from Toolonlandenkatu Street to the Station.

The Sauna, directly connected to the 200 seat panoramic restaurant and to its Winter Garden/Terrace, will have a pool for cold baths on the vegetated terrace. The restaurant will have a southern privileged and private access. The Exhibition Room is composed of a more closed part, which will hold the permanent exhibition. It is also composed of a developable, flexible and more heightened part, which opens on to the Southside ground floor during the summertime. This will allow events to be put on in the park, at the front of the building.

 

 

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Architect: Djuric TardioArchitectes

Area: 15 000 m²

Budget: 65 M€

Year: 2012

Client: Ville de Helsinki