LORENTEGGIO PUBLIC LIBRARY

Milan, Italy, 2018

competition

project team:
alessandro pasini, paola renda, alex scurti, marta scarcia

This project site is located in a small urban park directly overlooked by the municipal market and by buildings of public housing.

The building is placed along the main axes that mark out the whole area: via Lorenteggio that draws the North-South line and the currently in progress pedestrian-cycle path that will connect the site to the M4 Gelsomini stop on the East-West axis.

The library, shaped as a compact volume, is located in the center of the area, with the aim of highlighting its presence as a linkage between the site and the city of Milan and as a landmark that also encourages the process of renewal of the city.

The total surface of 2000 sqm is distributed into a square-shaped ground floor and an upper floor with the same dimensions, through which different volumes reaching different heights emerge constituting the LIB and LAB areas. These highly recognizable architectural elements differentiate themselves from the rest of the building, that instead blends with the background strictly respecting the actual urban structure.

The main entrance is located on the corner that faces the municipal market. This design choice promotes the connection with the main attractors in the area (the market and the square), favoring the identification of the library coming from different directions. The distribution structure follows the logic of recognition of the different areas, hierarchy of functions and diversified use of the building.

Entering the library, a filter space leads to the forum area and to the vestibule of the LAB area, entirely developed on the first floor in the north volume, where are located six rooms for laboratory, two of which are able to be joint together to form an auditorium directly linked to the terrace, the music room and other utility rooms. The forum area is designed as a fluid space for gathering and providing services to citizens, having available book-consulting desks, reading and internet areas and workstations. The remaining areas with specifi’c functions extend from this point onward: a children’s area, a space reserved for the consultation of magazines furnished with casual seating and a digital room. The forum area also means to facilitate the transition between outdoor and the intimate spaces indoor, where traditional functions are located, as offices, study rooms, an archive, reading rooms with open-access collections of fiction and non-fiction books, on the first floor of the south volume.

All the macro-areas provide direct access to the outdoor spaces of the library, both at ground floor, directly leading to the garden, and at the first floor, where the LIB and LAB areas are connected to outdoor spaces on the terrace.