Library Buildings around the World

The Women´s Library, London Metropolitan University, London – UK 2002
Location: London, Gross square footage: 21,500 sq ft, Total construction cost: $7.6 million, Owner: London Metropolitan University
Awards:
RIBA Award 2003
RIBAJ Beste UK Building 2002
Liveable City Sustainability Award 2002
Wood Award 2002: Shortliested for Best Public Building
A former laundry serves to house an archive of women’s history
This library has its roots in the Suffrage movement and houses the largest collection of books and objects related to women’s history
in England. The new building is on the site of a derelict Victorian washhouse and laundry in Old Castle Street. The resulting
building makes a positive and sensitive contribution to its urban context, is intellectually accessible, provides secure and
environmentally appropriate stores for the collection, is physically accessible and utilizes sustainable elements in the design. It
consists of an exhibition hall, seminar room, educational facilities, reading room, archives, café, offices, friends' room, and garden.
The library is surrounded by a disparate group of buildings. In response it steps back horizontally and vertically, behind the
retained façade as it rises on the east, with a copper clad link between the wash house wall and the main body of the building. To the
north a small garden has been created. The west façade will front a courtyard linking the building to the university’s new law
building, being designed by the same architect.
The structure is reinforced concrete frame clad internally and externally in brick. The very stringent environmental conditions
required in a museum and archive have been met using passive means rather than air conditioning. The estimated energy costs for
the archives are 20 percent of those for a conventional system. The palette of materials is restricted to brick, stone, oak, steel, and
glass. (http://archrecord.contruction.com)
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