North End Free Library and Public Bench Designed by TCA/Thier + Curran Architects in Hamilton, Canada

Article source: TCA/Thier + Curran Architects

North End Free Library and Public Bench Designed by TCA Architects Opens in Hamilton  (Hamilton, Ontario) – July 24, 2015 – The North End Free Library is open and lending books in Hamilton. This tactical urbanism intervention is a ‘take a book, leave a book’ gathering place – a civic gesture and public amenity that blurs the lines between public and private. It is about creating community and celebrating literacy in Hamilton’s waterfront North End neighbourhood.

Exterior view of bench and library cabinet, Image Courtesy © TCA/Thier + Curran Architects

• Architects: TCA/Thier + Curran Architects
• Project: North End Free Library and Public Bench
• Location: Hamilton, Ontario
• Software used: Autocad
• Type: Public Library / Street Furniture / Sculpture / Object Architecture
•  Status: Completed July 2015

Exterior library cabinet detail, Image Courtesy © TCA/Thier + Curran Architects

Designed and financed by TCA / Thier + Curran Architects Inc., the North End Free Library is a simple bench of ipe slats on a sculpted steel frame and a suspended cedar library box with a cast resin window.

Approach view, Image Courtesy © TCA/Thier + Curran Architects

Embracing the city’s steelmaking heritage, the steel is unfinished and raw, left with all the mill, tool and fabrication marks and traces, and then clear-coated. Books are imprinted with a custom stamp, designed by TCA.

Overall view from street, Image Courtesy © TCA/Thier + Curran Architects

With tongue firmly in cheek, TCA principal and lead designer Bill Curran says that “This is a unique, new building type – a typology to date addressed only by folk artists, hippies, tree huggers, amateur woodworkers and other ‘granola’ civic minded ne’er-do-wells.

Interior view of library cabinet, Image Courtesy © TCA/Thier + Curran Architects

It is time that serious, highbrow, bespoke architecture focuses on this emerging building type, and especially since all the ‘starchitects’ have ignored it (so far).”Dedicated to the citizens of Hamilton’s North End neighbourhood and crafted with love.

Custom stamp on inside book cover, Image Courtesy © TCA/Thier + Curran Architects

Tags: Canada, Hamilton

Categories: Autocad, Library

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