Saturday, May 27, 2006

Helsingborg Library

This library is linked to a new station that will function as a centre for a new district that will be built in the coastal city of Helsingborg, Sweden.
Due to the strategic site, a blank space between two segregated areas, this building has to be something special.

The plan is quite simple; a big, shining craterlike excavation in the centre of the floor plan will be where most of the books are, stacked in transparent bookshelves.
From here you can also access to the visual media room where you can play video games, listen to lectures, look at exhibitions and so on.

Around the crater is also some bookshelves and such, but this area is mostly designated for listening to music, reading fast-food literature, comics, newspapers.

A mighty chunk of forest in the north of the building makes up a dramatic backdrop for the whole library. As you enter from the north, you have to pass this in a Hans and Gretel kind of way, a transformation to imagination.

Mesh pathways leaps out in this forest from the second floor and from the roof terrace.
Secluded spaces in the treetops where you can get lost in a book, maybe Moby Dick?
The pathways connect to the building on the other side of the road.
A gigantic botanic garden can be reached from here as well.
Cocoons of strengthen opaque rubber penetrates the roof to light up the interior, and to make interesting places on the roof to hang out.
When the weather and season permits, the whole roof functions as a outdoor cinema, or a concert scene.

If you enter the library from the south, the forest will be most present, but if you enter from the north, the cocoons and the white light will be the dominating factor.
A kind of high-tech vs. nature, tradition vs. exploration.

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