CLIENT
LOCATION
YEAR
LOCATION
YEAR
MILANO, ITALY
2018
This project envisions the library as a city square, a cultural hub, a point of refuge, and a break from daily life. It becomes a key to understanding the neighborhood and outdoor space, shaping the park’s design. The building, intersecting the city, influences its surroundings through its activities. Like Kevin Lynch’s concept of a node, it serves as a crossroads for paths, geometries, and interactions. The focus is on connecting the library to its context, with material choices reducing costs and allowing investment in the exterior and park. Activities extend beyond the building, blurring the boundary with the park and transforming the entire neighborhood.
Its orientation breaks from the area’s rationalist plan, standing as a transparent volume connected to the park through daily paths and activities. It becomes a public space for all, a year-round winter garden. More than just a space for reading, the library is a vibrant, welcoming place for diverse, self-organized activities. Its glass facade reveals the interior, inviting everyone to participate in its life. The building’s flexible design keeps it alive, offering endless reasons to visit.
The library functions as a unified system with flexible, modular spaces that can be used independently by the Lorenteggio community at any time. Simple adjustments to paths and accessibility can change its configuration. The translucent facade signals activity, even at night.
The Lorenteggio library represents a new cultural center and reimagines the suburb as a space to redefine public life.