30 PROJECT REPORT: CULTURAL, CIVIC & FAITH BUILDINGS
level, fitting with Houben’s aim to “make a walkable building.”
Another long table on the ground floor overlooks 5th Avenue, and has been envisaged as a popular, sociable meeting place. The architects created a wide variety of social and quiet spaces throughout the building. Many areas, including the ground floor reception hall ceiling, have slatted timber acoustic ceilings, although some are treated differently. A table adjacent to the lifts on the ground floor, has acoustic slats with LEDs placed between them. Levels five and six contain a Business Library and Adult Learning Centre respectively, connected by a further stair void above the atrium. The feel is a little more “protected” at level six, says Houben, with people visiting the learning centre “sometimes shy, because they don’t speak or read English very well.”
© Max Touhey REFERENCE
The artwork to the atrium ceiling makes a subtle reference to the historic painted ceiling of the much-loved research library across 5th Avenue
steel floors running the length of the ‘leg,’ filled with bookshelves arranged at right angles to the open space.
Such an arrangement of shelving, when placed across a main library floor, is “always unpleasant,” says Houben. However, locating it at the other side of the atrium means it doesn’t impede views, circulation, or the overall experience, and in fact imparts a vibrant new feeling to the space.
There is a glazed bridge link at third floor
level, and a ceiling mural by New York artist Hayal Pozanti – a subtle reference back to the SASB’s Rose Main Reading Room.
Interior quality
The double-height ground floor, including a reinstated mezzanine, has a lively “grab and go” feel in terms of its library functions. The architects have made a virtue of the massive square columns, painting them bronze to add to the sense of arrival. Self-service desks sit along one side to enable visitors to return books, moving forwards to the reception if they need assistance.
The architects designed long oak tables hung between the columns throughout the building, and chairs, both of which in their materiality and form echo those in the Rose Main Reading Room in the SASB building. The architects also kept the generous existing stairs to the mezzanine
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
The long tables, connecting the columns, are placed to exploit the grid differently on each floor, to create “different atmospheres” on each, appropriate due to the different collections and users. The fourth floor benefits from the longest table, and a low level ‘seat’ version of the approach can be found on the second floor, enabling long vistas across the spaces.
The long table in the learning centre has an important role, hoped to provide a strong “community feeling,” says Houben, which will help support people with English as a second language. There is perimeter seating throughout, with carefully detailed composite desks running along the windows giving great views of the city.
Attracting children & teens As they did at the Library of Birmingham, the architects created new voids for young peoples’ library services within a basement/sub-ground floor level. For these user groups, this offers benefits of being closer to street level, “but also protected,” says Houben.
The open plan area still manages to separate the teenage area the younger children, using a multi-function space bookable by either section of the library. Each area has its own well-crafted, generous staircase, and in the case of the teenagers’ area, glazed ‘labs’ where users can learn current skills like how to make a podcast. Space for such studios was granted by the floorplate being larger than other floors, thanks to extending underground beyond the perimeter of upper floors.
Borrowed natural light comes down to the level from the ground floor glazing, and
ADF DECEMBER 2021
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
