Currently, the town of Highgate in London does not have a library, depriving residents of essential resources and opportunities for intellectual growth. This would be a space for people to be more informed, connected, and empowered as a community, allowing for further social integration.
With organic, modern curves, the building makes itself a spectacle, but it will be brick, connecting it to the local residents and architectural language.
The video we are showing is from the perspective of a student.
You will see how our library caters to the needs of visitors and provides an engaging, educational space in Highgate.
The idea to design a library came from our research, when we learned there was no library in Highgate.
Public libraries serve as vital hubs where people from all walks of life can come together to access resources, exchange ideas, and engage in various activities, allowing the establishment of social integration within communities from different backgrounds.
This is our first set of research that looks at social integration all over London in relation to the transportation system, green spaces, food markets, and public points of access. Social integration refers to the process of bringing together individuals or groups from different backgrounds, cultures, and social strata into cohesive and inclusive communities.
It involves fostering connections, mutual understanding, and cooperation among diverse members of society.
Right now, Highgate is located in a light yellow region, meaning there is low social integration, but if residents are more exposed to knowledge from other regions, they may feel comfortable branching out of their communities and engaging with people from all over.
It involves fostering connections, mutual understanding, and cooperation among diverse members of society.
Right now, Highgate is located in a light yellow region, meaning there is low social integration, but if residents are more exposed to knowledge from other regions, they may feel comfortable branching out of their communities and engaging with people from all over.
The next map is at a closer scale, and it reveals that Highgate actually has a mix of many different cultures, having one of the higher amounts of interracial families/couples. That said, there were not a ton of places for cultures to be shared at community centers or through ethnic restaurants.
The library will try to act as a place for culture to be shared via literature and knowledge to encourage the celebration and interaction with those cultures.
This is our closest scale of our research that studies social integration in the local Highgate area through the lenses of places that that people socialize, like like the rail network, restaurants, suburban areas, greenspace, and overall well-being, proving that the area is lacking some integration within its community and outside of it as well.
The program of the library will allow this social hub to flourish, providing collection spaces that hold books on various cultures, an auditorium that will be used for lectures and workshops, and a film archive and art gallery to display and store the work of artists from different backgrounds.
There will also be a cafe and co-working space open to the public as well as a lot of public seating areas scattered throughout the site. It will be a series of different buildings that encourage visitors to explore the site.
Here is the main collection space. You can see that it maintains the organic language of the project through the curved bookshelves. It is a very light space because of the double story height and the openness of the atrium.
This is the cafe, where visitors at the library or even just commuters can grab a coffee or even get some work done.
There are four main types of people we imagine to experience the library and the site.
First, we have the reader, who is solely there to find or check out a book. They travel through the collection spaces and not too much throughout the site.
Next, we have the explorer, who is interested in exploring the site’s intimate seating areas and nooks within the building and the surrounding nature.
Then, there is the commuter, who is only interacting with the tube entrances & exits as well as the center pathway that allows for easy circulation from top to bottom.
