Sofia Sá Mineiro

     Designed for a city generated from the intense relationship it keeps with the sea on the west, regarding the volumetry, the library is part of a flat ground (which once belonged to an old cannery) completely opened up the marginal avenue. This empty ground, in a seaboard full of architectural monents, becomes the calls himself the exception, so that in this area I suggested the building of a third element which would complete a kind of architectural dialogue between its component parts . It is assumed the idea of ​​"yard" in a quote of public space, where I tried to insert an architectural object, as if it were a sculpture .

          Thus, the idea of the cubic object takes form. It is an object where the entire program is condensed and lives as a whole itself arises, searching for simplicity and linearity of shapes.

         Outwardly, in elevation, the volume is composed by horizontal slots of different scales which don´t emphasize the height of the volume. The access to the interior is made by a ramp that connects the cube and the sea, the two most important issues in that place. This ramp, invites the people to go up, not only to appreciate in a better way, the sea landscape, but also to come in and enjoy the public equipment: The Library! The entrance is made from the west side in order to get people from marginal street.

        Regarding the outer public space, the pavement treatment came from an idea of unity, similarly to the formal image of the proposal. In certain alignments, submodules of the cube / building emerge, in which I define small leisure areas. The land space directly surrounding the building is entirely treated with a single deck , - the micro-cube - which extends not only over the quarter itself, where the proposal integrates, but it is also applied to the treatment of marginal street.

           Inside, I created a mezzanine. A core that intersects the whole volume from which radiate all the internal movements start. The groundfloor is reserved for the administrative services, storage, maintenance and staff rooms; the first floor, the entrance floor, the first one with public character is formed by multiusage hall, periodicals room, coffee shop, book store and service desk; The second floor is reserved for children's section; The third floor is reserved for adults, whose reading room has double height floor and forms an area of magazines and computers, and another leisure space outdoors in de fourth floor.