Running extensive user group consultations and working closely with the Director of Estates and Director of Information Services, enabled a deep understanding of the Library’s unique requirements. This, combined with expertise in educational and public interiors helped JMP to address the complex brief and deliver a design that has revivified Denys Lasdun’s Modernist masterpiece, transforming the 1970s library into an exemplar facility for the 21^st century.

 

Through sensitive intervention the interior has been stripped back to reveal Lasdun’s original fair-faced concrete structure, providing clarity to the internal planning and allowing natural daylight to penetrate the deep floor plate. Bespoke timber joinery provides warmth to the Brutalist interior and complements the terrace extension completed by JMP in 2006.

 

As a large proportion of library users are international students, designing a signage and way-finding scheme that transcended language was critical to the successful operation of the library. The solution was a colour identity for each of the six floors and pictograms used to support signage text .

 

Another challenge was to carry out the construction works whilst maintaining full access to the library’s open access book stock and rare book collection of over one million volumes. Tightly managed design stages teamed with a close collaborative relationship with the client and contractor during the two-stage tender process ensured this transpired. Site works were managed successfully with little disruption to users and staff as works progress on site.