The design of this private library has started from a requisite of space from a bibliophile: to organize and expose a collection of books previously confined in boxes. It was proposed a dialogue between daily habits cultivated in a pre-existing house and a large garden area available.
The additional library's area intended to maintain distance enough for the recognition of new volume autonomy as well as to be placed comfortably close enough to complement and connect existing balconies and external areas. The zone of transition between new and old volume was established by a generous garden, and its incorporation into the project was determined from distinct purposes of the openings:
Transparency: north and south facades that aim at a visual contact with existing house and the bordering garden, being protected in the north by eaves that avoids solar rays in summer and invites them to enter in winter;
Translucent: the eastern facade is filtered with inclined horizontal brises, which homogenize external landscape, and at the west facade a dense vegetation filtrates direct sun rays and homogenizes external view;
Dematerialization: The zenith opening is performed with special high solar filtration glass, and its position dematerializes a continuous brick wall from the main shelf, reflecting and framing the external pines.
Inner spaces are thus defined by the openings and are arranged by the central double-brick wall, which structure the library main casing. The toilet, the most enclosed space of the design, is the buttress of this mixed structure of wooden pillars and structural masonry wall. In contrast, the most open space is the reading balcony, where one seeks to keep a simplicity of habits of reading under the canopy of a tree.
Team: Alessio Dionisi and Dalton Ruas