MONTECARMELO LIBRARY 

Location: Madrid, Spain

Program: Public Library

Client: Madrid City Council

State: Competition

Year: 2019

Connecting people: a library for the 21st century

The traditional model of library divided into three large areas (book storage, reading room, and internal work space) has stopped responding to the needs of today's society that demands another type, not only of spatial configuration, but also of activities to be carried out in this type of cultural facility. It has been understood that the activity developed in this new library model cannot be focused only on being a place of openness to knowledge, but also to leisure, self-learning, inspiration, creation and above all to social encounter, being Therefore, it is very necessary to respond to the social needs linked to their immediate environment. Furthermore, these activities should not be sectorized, but rather overlap as far as possible. For this reason, a space for continuous activity has been proposed where the entire proposed needs program is distributed, which has also been complemented with other activities derived from neighborhood needs. This continuous space allows great versatility in its use, and can be easily modified in the future to adapt it to new needs. Only a clear sectorization has been proposed between the part of the program that requires an environment dominated by the silence of the rest of the program, which in the project has been called spaces for the word. To guarantee that these environmental conditions are met, small spaces have been proposed between the two types of programs that, by way of lobbies to access the quiet area, act as acoustic mattresses to guarantee their isolation.