Library: The Latest Architecture and News

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Foster + Partners has unveiled their design for the House of Wisdom, an iconic library and cultural center for Sharjah, this year’s UNESCO World Book Capital. Located on the Sharjah International Airport Road, ten kilometers from the city center, the two-story scheme “embodies a sense of clarity and lightness, with a large floating roof cantilevering on all sides of a transparent rectilinear volume.”

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A Green Spaceship appears to have landed in Villaverde, Madrid, in design firm 3GATTI’s proposal for the new municipal library. The design for the landmark building employs the public’s curiosity to draw visitors in and create an iconic presence in the city. The library is split between two floors, both architecturally and conceptually. The ground level is transparent and open, meant to house the noisy, public aspects of the program; the upper floor is the architectural showpiece, floating above the ground and containing the more private, quiet study spaces.

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Finnish practice ALA Architects has won the competition to design the new Learning Center of Université Lumière Lyon II in France. The project will be the second major library building by the office behind the recently opened Helsinki Central Library Oodi, and it will be ALA's first French commission. The building will replace the existing library and showcase sustainable construction alongside new teaching and study methods.

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Future Library

CODE - Competitions for Designers and the Università degli Studi di Genova launched “Future Library,” a competition seeking a new design for a learning space at the University of Genoa. Designers will have the opportunity to interpret and shape the future of places dedicated to learning and knowledge. A cash prize of € 15,000 will be awarded to winners selected by a well-renowned jury made of Giancarlo Mazzanti (El Equipo Mazzanti), Aser Giménez Ortega (MVRDV), Fedele Canosa (Mecanoo Architecten), Emanuele Magi (Università degli Studi di Genova).

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Online shop Toffu has produced a stylish content library aimed at architects seeking to improve their Photoshop, Illustrator, or CAD drawings. Hosting a range of vector and cad format packs, the library's vibrant content is markedly different from standard black and white line figures.

The content is available in elevation, plan, and isometric format, featuring people, furniture, icons, vehicles, and vegetation. Check out the Toffu site here to explore their full content.

The Helsinki Central Library Oodi, designed by ALA Architects, is nearing completion in Finland. Due to open its doors on December 3rd 2018, the library is situated in the cultural district of Töölönlahti, where it will sit as a ”powerful and iconic temporary design” among other architectural landmarks.

Situated across from the Finnish Parliament House, the scheme represents an interaction between the state and its citizens, “a new avenue to promote freedom of speech and democracy.”

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As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Finnish Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

Finland’s representation at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia responds to the theme "Freespace" by transforming the Alvar Aalto Pavilion of Finland into a temporary library space.

#donotsettle is an online video project created by Wahyu Pratomo and Kris Provoost about architecture and the way it is perceived by users. They visit buildings, make videos and write extended stories in their exclusive column on ArchDaily, #donotsettle Extra.

Yes, that library. The images of the Tianjin Binhai Library have appeared everywhere, from architecture blogs and news broadcasts to going completely viral on social media. We had to go see it and show you what the space is really like. So, we teamed up with MVRDV who sent us to Tianjin to see it up close.

Tianjin Binhai Library, designed by MVRDV, is part of the bigger master plan for the new Binhai Cultural Center (masterplanned by Germany’s GMP). The building has seen phenomenal success on social media reaching all corners of the world. Since the opening, the number of visitors has been constantly increasing, with many of them coming from way beyond Tianjin. It is a library as destination point, redefined.

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The Bay Book House (BaBH) San Francisco international competition for students and young architects consists in proposing a space for cultural exchange that will activate one or several of the unused piers of the historic Port of San Francisco.

Videos

An airplane that skidded off the runway in Trabzon, Turkey, earlier this month (with no injuries) may soon be repurposed into a library for the city.

Five days after the plane was removed from its cliffside perch, Trabzon Mayor Orhan Fevzi Gümrükçüoğlu has reached out to the general manager of airline involved in the incident, Pegasus Airlines, to ask if they will donate the plane as a gift with the condition that it will be used as a library space, explaining that “keeping it here will also erase the bad memories attached to the plane.”

“Once you stop learning you start dying” -Albert Einstein

Knowledge is power, knowledge is freedom. But my simple definition of knowledge is total sum of all things you know as a person, and all things known universally. Your experiences, skills you have acquired, and information that has been captured in any accessible format that can be utilized in various ways, is knowledge. And library is a temple for those who seek knowledge.

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Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter has revealed their finalist proposal for the recent RIBA Competition to design a new Southmere Village Library and civic space for the southeast London suburb of Thamesmead, a competition won by Bisset Adams.

Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter’s proposal embraces the waterfront nature of the site by introducing a stepped, sawtoothed building that interacts with the water in a way similar to the old brick factories of East London and the palaces of the upper Thames. Reflections from the water could pass through the high-transparency glass walls of the library, connecting visitors with the Southmere Lake even when indoors

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