Sant Gervasi-Joan Maragall Library | Baena Casamor Arquitectes BCQ, SLP

The motto with which the project was presented in the ideas competition was “Garden of Light”, summing up the two main ideas of the project: maintaining and improving the existing garden while providing joyful and well lit spaces.
The building is primarily connected to Sant Gervasi de Cassoles street. The unevenness between the garden and this street naturally provides access to the new facilities. On the other hand, the gardened roof is on the same level as the old garden, so that the construction of the new facility has meant the full restoration of the Civic Center garden preserving some of the existing trees on this area..

The building is shaped by “light and silence patios” and “books and knowledge patios”. The first, surrounded by glass, light and ventilate the interior while isolating the library from the street. The second, concrete volumes filled with books, are part of the supporting structure of the library.

Inside, the aim has been to recreate a tectonic landscape with a succession of resounding volumes and unexpected transparencies. The reading rooms are small, the size of a home living room. The structural walls are coated with honeycomb clay blocks, a simple material of great nobility that provides silence, thermal comfort, warmth and a certain relationship to land, appropriate in an excavated building.

The fact of being underground helps the thermal conditioning of the building, as guarantees a stable temperature meaning little energy to heat or to cool the interior. Heat losses are also minimal due to the thickness of the insulation used. The HVAC system is based on active inductors with microdiffusers.