The new Villaverde library is designed to become a catalyst, an open and inclusive building that opens to the neighborhood, allowing it to enrich its architecture and boost its social activity.
The library works as an urban living room, which can house multiple scenarios of daily life, as well as places for study, relax, education, culture and politics. It is not only a place of study and cultural growth, but also a space where you can express the needs of the neighborhood.
At the ground floor the building follows the existing topography becoming a terraced space that is the core of the building: an informal place for study and relax, accessible to everyone.The upper floor houses, on the other hand, all the most reserved and silent activities of the building, ideal to house the functions that characterize a traditional library. The ground floor is totally permeable and it is intended as an urban permeable plaza: a place that acts as an extension of the city. The boundary between the internal and external space dissolves, creating a continuous space.
Open Library is an extremely efficient building that uses active and passive systems for energy savings. The photovoltaic panels on the roof allow a consistent reduction of the energy consumption of the building, while the thermal panels allow the heating of the water in a sustainable way.