Sant Gervasi - Joan Maragall Library

The motto with which the project was presented in the ideas competition was 'Garden of Light'. These two words sum up the two ideas of the project: maintaining and improving the existing garden, while at the same time providing joyful and well lit spaces. The building will be 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 will be on the same level as the old garden, so that the construction of the new facility will mean the restoration of the civic center garden at its maximum dimension, where Vil.la Florida is the building dominating the complex.

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 existing garden extends through the roof of the new library to the Sant Gervasi de Cassoles street, where a new access point to the gardens has been created. To preserve some of the trees existing in this area of the garden has been one of the biggest challenges of this project. 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.

Site area: 5.464 m²

Building area: 2.983 m²

Landscape area: 763 m²