Library Buildings around the World

Pringle Richards Sharrat Architects, London – UK
http://www.prsarchitects.com
Libraries:
Black Cultural Archives, Brixton, London – UK 2010
737 sqm, £3.5 million
Awards:
BD Architect of the Year Award (2011)
BD Architect of the Year Award (2010)
Pringle Richards Sharratt was appointed to design the new Black Cultural Archive in Brixton, London, following a competitive
interview.
The project is a joint venture between Lambeth Council and the Black Cultural Archive to provide new accommodation for black
cultural artefacts and archives in a controlled environment within the UK for the first time. The building will be opposite Lambeth
Town Hall and form part of the challenging redevelopment of Brixton Town Centre. A substantial part of the project will be the
refurbishment of Raleigh Hall, a listed building owned by Lambeth Council and made available by them for the sole use of the BCA.
The new BCA will provide a much needed new focus within both Brixton and the UK for the black community. The building will
provide flexible space for external events and the presentation of temporary exhibitions like ‘Black Gold’ which was carried out
recently by the BCA as a joint venture with the V&A. The scheme will involve the complete refurbishment of the listed buildings to
create new exhibition space, visitor centre, interactive orientation area, library and conservation spaces, as well as creating a new
extension providing integrated storage for the collection to BS 5454.
The project is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, London Development Agency and London Borough of Lambeth. (Pringle)
Hull Historic Centre, Hull – UK 2010
Awards:
Civic Trust Award 2011
Wood Award 2010
Hull History Centre is a new two-storey building containing the archives of the City of Hull. The archives are stored on the first
floor, and the ground floor provides public spaces – reading rooms, exhibition spaces, and lecture theatres. The entrance is through a
public arcade and winter garden, which runs the full length of the building. Structurally the building consists of two very different
forms – a plane two-storey concrete frame, and a two-storey high atrium formed of ETFE panels supported on curved Glulam ribs.
The concrete frame has to support the heavy weight of the archives in rolling stacks, so the columns supporting the flat slabs are
relatively closely spaced to control the deflections. The soffits of the slabs are exposed to provide their part of the thermal flywheel,
and are meticulously detailed with shutter panels organised and joints exposed. The entrance arcade is a series of ETFE cushions
supported on two-storey high curved Glulam ribs, elegantly fixed to steel shoes at top and bottom and laterally restrained by a small
steel purlin at mid height. Glulam ribs at the eaves take the tension forces from the cushions. These ribs are singly curved, and set at
about normal to the roof slope, creating a continuous ripple of the eaves in plan and elevation, which nicely relates to the soft curves
of the cushions. This is a very carefully considered and well detailed example of exposed structure, expressing the different functions
of the parts of the building. The result has delighted the people of Hull, who have visited in large numbers.
Radcliffe Science Library, Oxford University, Oxford – UK 2004 - 2007
£ 2.400.000
Awards:
Oxford Preservation Trust Award 2009
Oxford University has recognised, for a number of years, the benefits that could be achieved from the development of a more unified
and rationally organized library system involving the many libraries funded by the University. This project is part of the Oxford
University Library Service's strategy for a more integrated, more efficient and more user-friendly library service. The proposals
allow the Radcliffe Science/ Hooke Lending Library to play an important part in the OULS strategy to create “A University Library
for the 21st Century”. The proposals are linked to the creation of a new Depository as this would allow the further expansion of book
storage and provide the future space to complete the reorganization of the RSL to take on its role as a “Science Hub”. Over time it
will also allow the incorporation of those departmental collections that wish to become integrated in the RSL-Hooke. The scheme
equips the RSL to act as the principal ‘hub’ for science and medicine reference and lending books at Oxford University. This is
achieved by:
•Enhancing integration between the two main above-ground components of the existing RSL/Hooke complex, the Worthington and
Jackson Wings.
•Providing a newly-designed entrance hall which will enable the combined RSL/Hooke to function as a lending library.
•Providing more coherently arranged staff working areas.
•Providing facilities which will allow the RSL/Hooke to comply with current building legislation for disabled access plus fire safety.
The scheme provides a replacement for the existing link between the Worthington and Jackson buildings and the creation of a more
visibly logical entrance from the museum forecourt. (Pringle)
Pitt Rivers Research Center & Balfour Library. Oxford University, Oxford – UK 2004-2006
2,100 sqm, £ 5.000.000
The clients brief was for a new building to contain public facilities for Museum visitors, lavatories, lecture and seminar rooms and a
special exhibition gallery, a library for students, research areas for staff and visiting academics, conditioned storage for museum
objects, conservation and collections management facilities, and offices for academic and administrative staff. Planning Constraints:
The site for the building was an area of lean-to buildings and turn of the century corrugated iron huts, built against the walls of the
Pitt Rivers Museum, and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The site was in the curtilage of a Listed Building, and
Listed Building consent was required both to demolish the lean-to buildings and corrugated sheds, (which were not listed but of
historic interest) and also to demolish the existing staircase of the Pitt Rivers Museum, to allow the new building to adjoin the Pitt
Rivers Museum at that point. The Research Centre contains a new staircase, and a lift, which the public can now use to circulate to
the upper galleries in the Museum. There was also a small stone gabled addition (originally built onto the Oxford University
Museum) but in use by the Pitt Rivers Museum, which was demolished to allow the new building to take a regular form. The
challenge was to build a modern building, amongst the existing Victorian museums. The mass of the building, a large volume with a
steep roof, was taken from the forms of the adjoining buildings. The long vertical window was designed to make a “break" between
the new buildings and the existing stone facade of the Oxford University Museum.
Materials and Method of Construction
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