Competition

Library and Civic Center


Location Briosco, Monza, Italy
Year 2014
Client Municipality of Briosco
Area / Volume 825 sqm park, sqm 400 sqm library and civic center, 2525 sqm external areas
Architectural design DOIT Architetti Associati
Collaborator Antonio Guido Paolucci, Ruggero Bonino, 3DLabor
Structural design Proges Engineering S.a.s.

The new library of Briosco fits into the landscape like a thin light blade cutting the soft mountain system in which it is inserted. It is a semi-underground building which connects two levels of an existing park. The roof, part turf, part in larch wood, has a suggestive trend characterizing the image and the volumes of the new library. The height of the building varies in relation to the functions which it is related, generating extremely heterogeneous and always changing spaces. The light plays with the wood sculpted pillars that look like Brancusi stalactites. They rise an interesting counterpoint between the verticality of the poetic pillars and the rarefied atmosphere of the enveloping space. The natural wood is the main material of this project both for the construction technologies (X-lam panels, beams, coverage) and the design of structures, furnishings and finishes (sculpted pillars, furniture). The large free space is deliberately simple and bright and reconfigurable thanks to the possibility of repositioning the furniture. The community gives itself as a library, a civic center, a kindergarden, a space for the exhibition and the production of art in a homely atmosphere.