Quiet please: worldwide libraries that speak up for their communities

The traditional idea of a library is a rather boring and dusty land where the word is king and silence the price of entry. A small fee for an invitation into wonderful, fantastical worlds or to educate oneself on diverse subjects from architecture to zoology. However, as information and stories are now so widely and cheaply available with a simple voice command, the out-of-favour library building has been forced to evolve.

Risen from the ashes of literary learning, libraries all over the world are being reborn as community hubs that inspire action. Offering spaces and services for those of all ages and interests to come together, the following library buildings from Architonic’s project archive use acoustic techniques to help some users hear their inner voice while helping others to make their voices heard.

With ‘dedicated areas for programmes and events for each age group’ and ‘an array of spaces for the public to meet and collaborate,’ as its architects Schwartz/Silver Architects explain, the Charlotte & William Bloomberg Medford Public Library is ‘much more than a repository of books.’ By lining its curved ceilings with perforated acoustical planks and keeping its various spaces for different groups acoustically separated, the library provides flexible spaces that can be kept – but don’t need to stay – quiet.

For example, musicians can reserve group study rooms to practice together alongside quiet alcoves where local business owners can focus. Amongst the many other community activities the building is able to support are computer learning for adults, podcast recording for seniors, cupcake decorating and poetry contests for teenagers and story time for children.

The Goethe-Institut is an international non-profit organisation that promotes the study of the German language and encourages cultural exchange and relations with other countries throughout the world. However, unlike in Germany’s north-European climate, the Goethe-Institut in Bogotá faces Colombia’s tropical one and so chooses to keep spaces open instead, ‘removing the divisions to allow for greater circulation,’ as explain Yemail Architecture.

In order to control the fighting acoustics in a lively, open space such as this, the building sets classes, conferences, screenings and debates inside a ‘diaphanous, translucent and flexible central space, opened or enclosed with track curtains. Meanwhile, the use of ceiling baffles above each area ensures sound is unable to travel far, and the centre’s library uses the books themselves as additional acoustic buffering, with a welcoming circle of bookshelves standing as a gateway between lobby and library.

Set on the edge of a ‘peninsula-shaped hill’ as 3andwich Design / He Wei Studio describe it, The Water Drop Library looks out over the Shuangyue Bay Turtle Reserve. By sinking the main body of the structure beneath the drop of the hill and shielding its surface with a rooftop pool, the view of the bay from the residential buildings behind is unobstructed.

Meanwhile, visitors to the ‘underwater library’ as the architects put it, begin their experience with the journey towards it. With a long wall used to shield them from an unfavourable view to the southwest, they’re shocked into stunned silence by the flat horizon before descending down to the interior. Once inside, a 270-degree glass facade partners peaceful reading time with a sea view.

In opposition to monastic libraries that enforce and encourage silence with a combination of acoustic surfaces and power-hungry librarians, the library set within the offices of the Nippan Group (an online literary wholesaler) in Tokyo, wanted to create the opposite effect: a library that actually encourages readers to speak to one another.

With a brief to help spark social interactions over shared literary loves, architects KOKUYO created rising mountains of bookshelves to display over 2,000 books, each one handpicked by an employee with a written note recalling ‘memories and their reasons for choosing the book,’ explain KOKUYO. The connection of a book’s selector with its nominee encouraged the well-loved stories to find new followers and for employees to bond over them, on tables set at the base of the hill.

© Architonic

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