The Jean d’Ormesson library is located in the northern part of the town of Vendargues, in a particular urban context. It is 10 minutes from the village’s center (town hall) and 20-25 minutes from the southern extremities of the agglomeration. The neighborhood is mainly residential and has two schools (Ribambelle and Garrigues schools), a medical center, a stadium and a nursery. The library is ideally located and easily accessible.
The Library is located on the upper part of the parcel, which is on the flattest part of the site. The topology was taken into account in the design and implementation of the building. The library forecourt is an extension to highlight the building. This public space marks a gradual entry into the library and allows the inhabitants to benefit from a vegetated living area punctuated with urban furniture such as benches.
DesignGroup, based in Columbus, Ohio, led the Licking County Library as they renovated the popular Youth Services area into a contemporary, flexible space that can host events and provide unparalleled youth accessibility.
“The DesignGroup team worked closely with us throughout the design process,” said Marisa Glaviano, Licking County Library’s youth services coordinator. “Since youth services is so popular, we wanted to make sure we created a space that showed our dedication to the needs of our youth.”
Located on the southeast edge of the Université de Nanterre, opposite the exit from the RER suburban train station, the library stands on an a typical triangular plot of land of rather modest dimension when compared with the size of the campus and the neighboring landscape of office and apartment towers.
On the east façade, the main part of the program runs alongside the university, coming to an end on the south side with the great window of the exhibition areas. The grand entrance porch stands on the south side, overlooking the mall, on the smaller side of the building. It serves as the base for the prism that dominates all the building’s volumes. The programs are dense and superimposed on this challenging plot: a reading room on the ground floor, exhibitions and training rooms on the second floor, and offices on the two upper floors.
The National Library of the Republic of Tatarstan is located in a building erected in 1987 for the Kazan branch of the Lenin Central Museum. The building, clad in Armenian tufa stone thus resembling the image of a waving Soviet flag, is one of the centerpieces of Kazan and a significant example of late Soviet architecture. After the collapse of the USSR, the National Cultural Center “Kazan” was located there, which also housed a Kazan City Museum until recently. The most notable achievement of the project, whilst being respectful to the material and spatial features of the original design, was to transform a somber and outdated structure into a vibrant and lively public space.
Restructured and enlarged, the Saint-Corneille library has undergone a complete renewal and been given new volumes. It is incorporated into the remains of the Saint-Corneille Abbey of which only the cloister, a cellar and the external envelope still exist. The archaeological cut-away provide an understanding of the building’s historic complexity.
The entrance has been redefined through the addition of a contemporary glass volume. From the street, passers-by can see the vaults supporting the ground floor and the cellar, and discover the atmosphere of the setting.
MVRDV has begun construction on Shenzhen Terraces, a mixed-use project that forms the core of the thriving university neighbourhood in Shenzhen’s Longgang District. The project comprises a stack of accessible plates containing the buildings’ programme, where all communication takes place on the shaded terraces to maximise public life. Designed with sustainability as a focus, the project’s green outdoor spaces mix together with a wide variety of activities – including a theatre, a library, a museum, a conference centre, and retail – to make the site a hub for meeting, learning, leisure, culture, and relaxation. The stacked horizontal terraces provide a valuable contrast to the high-rise towers all around, but they also perform an ecological function: overhangs provide shade and the round shape promotes wind flow and natural ventilation. The abundance of greenery, pedestrian paths, and water features make the project one of the more sustainable in Shenzhen.
Client: Shenzhen Shimao Xin Li Cheng Industry Co.,Ltd.
Founding Partner in charge: Winy Maas
Director: Gideon Maasland
Associate Design Director: Gijs Rikken
Design Team: Sanne van Manen, Irgen Salianji, Shengjie Zhan, Luca Beltrame, Katarzyna Maria Ephraim, Cas Esbach, Hengwei Ji, DongMin Lee, Yannick Macken, Giuseppe Mazzaglia, Siyi Pan, Sen Yang, Jiani You, Daan Zandbergen
Songdo International City is located in the vicinity of Incheon Port, 56 km west of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The city is only 15-minute drive away from Incheon Airport, its ideal geographical location makes it a better place for business and trades in Northeast Asia. Songdo International City is known for being a tech-based, intellectual, and eco-city. While the infrastructure of the city is growing mature, the development of more cultural buildings, such as this public library, is expected to be a key indicator to carry out a cultural purpose into the city and hoped to draw closer connections with their living citizens.
The new Macau Central Library will be located by the Tap Seac square in the historical center of Macau, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is situated on the site of the former Hotel Estoril (designed by the Macau- born Portuguese architect, Alfredo Victor Jorge Álvares), which was the first casino resort in Macau opened in 1962 and has been vacant since the 1990s.
Libraries are dynamic and continually changing. While clearly a contemporary structure within a traditional context, the new Central Library will provide a forward-thinking platform for influencing its surroundings. The adjacent square will become an integral part of the library, creating an activated public realm, which will encourage visitors to use all the public amenities that new library can offer.
The House of Wisdom – an iconic library and cultural centre in Sharjah – has opened to the public. The central focus of the 2019 UNESCO World Book Capital celebrations, the project seeks to be the catalyst for a new cultural quarter in the city.
Gerard Evenden, Head of Studio, Foster + Partners said: “The House of Wisdom in Sharjah is a forward-looking conception of what a library should be in the 21st century – embracing a digital future while playing a crucial role as a community hub for learning, underpinned by innovation and technology.”
This November, Wutopia Lab completes the Satori Harbor, a culturally symbolic library situated in VIPshop’s new headquarters. In Master Zhuangzi, the word Satori (Zhaoche) describes a state of transcendental being in the practice of Taoism, as the morning light shining across the entire earth.
Yu Ting, the Founder & Chief Architect of Wutopia Lab, sees the library materializing the complex mechanism of the world – an abstract harbor city where the readers can wander through books and experience their moments of enlightenment and deliverance. Satori Harbor symbolizes a moral place for that of practice of life.
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