Bibliothèque Universitaire des Sciences, Orléans la Source campus. Winner of the EQUERRE D'ARGENT Prize 2005

Florence Lipsky

With the arrival of the tram network, the Orléans library is part of a comprehensive project to reintegrate the university campus into the surrounding city. The library lends meaning to its environment: its positioning, coupled with an entrance porch running alongside a pedestrian walkway that leads from the car park to the lake, produces a truly urban site. On the tram side, the translucent polycarbonate façade transforms the building into a light-filled container.
A distinct two-story interior space, clad in dark wood, contains the books. This "fixture", created from plywood formwork protected with phenolic film, is a staging element, depicting the consolidation of knowledge that defines a library. It is simultaneously an efficient tool and a space that embodies and lends tangible shape to knowledge. By reiterating on the inside what the building accomplishes for the campus as a whole, the library becomes a rallying cry, capable of embodying a truth that the digitization of content tends to conceal. The uninhibited use of industrial components merely renders the demands that shaped the building more explicit. The building represents a middle ground between doing and demonstrating what is being done.

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Florence Lipsky FR

https://lipskyrollet-ae.com/fr
21 rue du tunnel | 75019 paris