Kirkwood Public Library by ikon.5 architects

Project: Kirkwood Public Library
Designed by ikon.5 architects
Location: New Castle, Delaware, USA
Scope: 22,500sqf
Website: www.ikon5architects.com
In the last decade with development of internet role of a library had to gain numerous new aspects, answering modern day challenges ikon.5 architects have created the project for Kirkwood Public Library in New Castle.

From the Architects:

 Set along a commercial shopping strip highway, Kirkwood Public Library is designed as roadside billboard announcing the public civic function of reading, learning and exploration within. The objective was to create a new branch library for a growing diverse community that would serve as the iconic community center of the neighborhood. Shopping malls and fast food restaurants flank both sides of the site. Large commercial signs are stacked along the highway where this library is sited and a small scale residential neighborhood is set one block in from the highway site. It is within this context, that the library appears as a collection of books set on the highway. Facing the highway, the building facade, of stacked horizontal cement board siding, is fashioned as a series of boxes that represent the edge of books piled up on their side.