Cluj National Library Extension / manadelucru

Architectural firm manadelucru has shared with us their recent proposal for the Cluj National Library Extension, located in Cluj Romania. Images and text after the break.

The Central University Library „Lucian Blaga” Cluj-Napoca launched an architectural contest for a new storage building with open shelf access. The competition aimed at selecting and awarding the best solutions of architecture for a new building that should contain a deposit area with open shelf access, public hosting and technical spaces. The site is on the SW side of the existing building and has a total area of 1230 mp.

The project proposes to achieve a perfect cube pattern (6m x 6m x 6m). Thus the entire proposed area will be “filled” with space divided extremely rational. The proportion required between spaces with free access to shelves and those with restricted access, is solved in this logic matrix. The volumetric grid of 6m (cubes) is also expressed in the facades.

The interior is spatially build also according the matrix and is subdivided by intermediate platforms for increasing the surface. But the need for density does not lead to a complete interior occupancy because in this 3D matrix, at different levels, cube volumes disappear.

Enclosed spaces in the OSB panels painted in black are reserved places for reading.

Similar to attic chambers of Transylvanian houses, that have a very large interior volume and are very impressive spaces, the function proposed for the last floor of the building, relaxation space, comes in the sense of reinterpretation of this architectural elements, and the “funnels” bring light inside and also broadcast this light to the lower floors, this are reinterpretations of traditional houses chimneys.