Setúbal Public Library Entry by AND-RÉ

Portuguese architecture firm AND-RÉ (previously on Bustler) has sent us its stunning entry to the architectural competition for the new public library building in the city of Setúbal, Portugal.

Project Description from the Architects:

The concept is developed with the purpose of controlling the external environmental conditions in order to manipulate the internal space.

It is an introspective system, developed around a central courtyard, as indeed occurs in many examples in the history of architecture, serving a purpose of reflective internalization and privacy. It is a way to focus the architecture in itself, like the act of assimilating knowledge.

This space is a positive affirmation of expression of society's need to move away from an external active, stressed and noisy environment, as an opportunity to reach balance and harmony.

The building, although being an organizational system that develops itself introspectively, it also opens up strategically into the urban fabric, rising punctually at two points, as cloth, allowing passage under the object, allowing the crossing, offering the interior, creating a distinct new urban reality, a protected space, understood as exceptional moment in the sequential chronology of urban routes, an invitation for a pause, enticing the discovery, inviting the crossing, welcoming the entrance, embracing the citizen.

The conscious choice of the circular shape provides a peaceful, almost implied relation to the context of confrontation. By its natural features, form is fluid, continuous, allowing a subtle, yet direct, relation with the environment. The circular shape allows the required intelligibility for the assimilation of the building.

The shape is not an imposition in the context, but a dynamic challenge to the environment.

Project Details:

Type: Competition Proposal for the Setúbal Public Library
Location: Setúbal - Portugal
Date: 2013
Area: 2,398 m2
Promoter: Setúbal Municipality, Portugal
Architecture Team: Bruno André, Francisco Salgado Ré, Catarina Fernandes, Fernando Ferreira, Filipe Paixão
Engenieering & sustainability: AFA consult

Find also drawings and diagrams of the proposal in the image gallery below.