The new médiathèque and the esplanade unfolding before it are integral parts of a vast urban redevelopment project (ANRU project) currently implemented by the City of Toulouse. The multiple aspirations of this new multimedia library logically include the rehabilitation of unoccupied urban spaces and the creation of a strong, purposeful architectural symbol. The médiathèque stands in the Le Mirail suburb of the city, laid out between 1961 and 1971 by Georges Candilis and whose urban fabric today is largely fragmented. Additions down the years to Candilis’s original work of Modernist beauty have undermined the area’s structure and the role of this new public building was to reinforce the neighbourhood’s identity, along with other recently rehabilitated or completed constructions.
The plot designated for the médiathèque lies on Avenue de la Reynerie and was originally occupied by a low-lying building, now demolished, and areas of vegetation which have been integrated into the new design. The immediate vicinity is composed of unoccupied planted spaces, a number of high-rise apartment blocks of Modernist inspiration (10- 14 floors) and tall detached houses. The closest neighbouring building is a low, brick built, cube-shaped structure topped with a roof terrace and occupied by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The building plot for the médiathèque came with a certain number of constraints, ranging from regulatory distances with neighbouring plots and roadways, to the underground train running beneath the projected building and thereby strongly influencing its morphology.
Studio dLux was invited by Centro Educacional Pioneiro to elaborate a new project for them. The school was looking for a space innovation. The rooms selected to the renovation were: the teacher’s room, technology room and the library.
The teachers had the necessity of a bigger room to rest during the class breaks and to prepare the activities for the students. With the room expansion, there was space to add more work stations, including an “L” shaped desk and a shared desk for eight people. A chill-out area was also created, with a small kitchen and storage furniture.
This is an interior remodeling project. The original building was designed by Liang Jingyu, an architect of renown in 1990s, which served as an adjunctive space to a well-known art institution back then. The floor plan of the architecture presents an asymmetric U-form, of which the south side of the space is long and narrow, the west side wider, and the south facade with French windows of a strong sense of sequence. The west side of the space is relatively upright and foursquare, to which, after repeated rentals and renovations, a second floor and an attached space had been added. The north side is shorter, a two-storeyed part serving as logistics space.
Article source: gmp · von Gerkan, Marg and Partners Architects
At the end of 2019, the Suzhou No. 2 Library will be opened to the north of the historic Suzhou city center. This means that this traditional cultural city will have more than “just” a new library. Embedded in a new park landscape, the new library building with its integrated specialist libraries, collections, and exhibition rooms also fulfills the functions of a culture center. The key feature of the library is the intelligent storage system with a capacity of seven million books—the first in the country. The architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) had won the competition and received the commission in 2014.
Suzhou No. 2 Library will be opened at the end of 2019. The design for the new library building was produced by gmp in cooperation with the Southeast University Architectural Design Institute. The library is located in the Xiangcheng District to the north of Suzhou’s historic city center.
Overlooking Quanhai Bay and the South China Sea, Bao’an Cultural Complex is a masterplan of buildings that create a new public campus for the city while mediating between the coastal landscape and the more densely developed commercial areas further inland. The 110,000-square-meter scheme—which includes a library, cultural centre, as well as a performing arts venue—won an invited international competition. The Library and the Youth Palace and Cultural Centre were completed as part of the first phase. An additional performing arts centre is currently under construction and will complete in 2020, finishing the development.
Design team: Rocco Yim, Derrick Tsang, William Tam, Herbert Hung ,Martin Fung, Lucia Cheung, Stephen Chan, Simon Ho, Calvin Chung, Ivy Yung, Zachary Wong , Zhu Yi, Seah lee, Jans Liang, Leo Zhou, Chen Lan, Amber Wang, Yang Shi Pei
This K-12 private school building contains the Lower School, Library, Music, Phys-ed and Science Departments
The Brearley School, founded in 1884, is a prestigious k-12 school located in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Since 1929 the school has resided in a single building that they purpose built. The school has grown over the years and approached KPMB to expand the facility by adding a second academic building to the campus and to renovate the existing facility so it is consistent with the new building.
As is typical in Manhattan the site has a small footprint, measuring only 100’x75’ which requires the multi-disciplined building to be a series of stacked element of dissimilar character. The project includes Science labs stacked on a regulation Gymnasium stack on an Auditorium, Stacked on a “school house” stacked on Common room and Library. The resulting building could have been an incoherent Jenga tower however there was a strong desire to unify the elements into a coherent volume with more subtle expression of the program through fenestration scale and density.
The former Suchard factory site in Zaventem was transformed into the “The Factory” cultural site which is intended to lend the town centre a whole new look. The Suchard site is a long stretch of terrain; a ‘lost’ piece of land situated between the backs of the stores on Stationstraat and the houses on Seliersstraat and the railway on the other side. This site was also subject to a strict “BPA” (special development plan). The development of this site was a surefire socio-cultural injection for the town centre. The bordering presence of the academy with its green surroundings and gorgeous trees broadened and enhanced this site and will make it the green anchoring point leading to the town. The entire project developed into one masterplan: ‘culture site Suchard’.
Programme
In addition to a library, The Factory also features a large theatre with 679 seats and a multifunctional hall. The main building has a large foyer, a cultural cafe, a dance and ballet hall and rehearsal spaces for music and recitals, party halls, catering, exhibition rooms, conference and meeting rooms and artists’ residences on top of the administrative areas. The playhouse itself is equipped with a full-fledged theatre, theatre storage spaces and studios as well as a mobile orchestra pit (with elevator) for an orchestra of approx. 30 musicians.
Libraries are key parts of the social infrastructure in our society. One of the few remaining public spaces, libraries are places of sharing, learning and discovery. For this project, we were able to turn a casino, which took from the community, into a library; which gives back to the community.
This was the last project of the Capital Bond Measure in which King County Library systems opened 17 new libraries, expanded 11 libraries, and renovated 14 libraries. As it was the last project, the budget was tight and creative solutions were needed.
The new library will embody Tec de Monterrey’s academic mission, common ground for all disciplines and programs contained within the Tec, the library will be the place where students, faculty, staff, and knowledge groups come together to access information, study, collaborate, and be inspired.
The experience of the library will sum up the full cycle of learning and production at the Tec, from the day to day to special events. In acknowledgement of the dynamic nature of teaching and learning at the Tec, the building will be inherently flexible and adaptable, ensuring it will both serve and reflect the learning experience from now on to the future.
Turin-based architectural firm BDR bureau completes the transformation of the new Enrico Fermi School in Turin, the winning project of an international competition launched in 2016 by “Torino Fa Scuola”. The initiative, promoted by the Compagnia di San Paolo and the Fondazione Agnelli, in collaboration with the City of Turin and “Fondazione per la Scuola”, embodies a cultural, pedagogical and architectural reflection on the new learning spaces of the Italian school.
The existing school building, built in the 1960s in the Nizza Millefonti district between the former industrial area of the Lingotto and the Po river in the south-east area of Turin, has been extended and it is functionally rethought. The new educational needs – in which the school becomes an integral part of the community and merges with the urban fabric – represents the future of education and architecture for the Italian school.
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