Library

Michael K. Chen Architecture (MKCA) has designed the new Children’s Library at Concourse House: Home for Women and Their Children, a Bronx-based shelter that serves women with young children under the age of nine who are transitioning out of homelessness. Established in 1991, Concourse House works to eliminate homelessness by providing families with safe, stable, transitional housing, coupled with a range of social services and programming to help those families transition into permanent housing.

The East Street Library project has been delivered as part of a wider ‘What Walworth Wants’ strategy commissioned by Southwark Council and the Greater London Authority to make significant improvements to the area. Along with East Street Market enhancements, the project is one of two ‘catalyst projects’ that have been realised as part of the strategy, with funding secured from the Mayor of London. Now a bright red extension pokes out into the street from the existing 1960s building and appears markedly different from its surroundings to suggest the new functions contained within.

The Patrick Heath Public Library was designed to support a goal of providing the community a sense of belonging and connection to the environment. A priority for the building is to provide a comfortable space for reading, viewing and listening for pleasure and lifelong learning. The sole library in Boerne, Texas, a community just west of San Antonio, exists in harmony with the city’s renowned bucolic surroundings.

Oodi occupies a hugely significant site in central Helsinki: facing the steps of the Finnish parliament building, the Eduskuntatalo across the Kansalaistori square, a public space flanked by major civic institutions. 

Located in São Paulo, the library was designed in an existing space attached to the main house. The place, plus the program inspired us to create a working and reading space, a refuge, with a double right foot and a short stretch with a simple right right foot, guided us to create wood panels cvered in straw in a room solely white.

With the opening October 1, 2018, Tingbjerg Library and Culture House is a new landmark building in Copenhagen, Denmark. COBE’s aim is for the project to serve as an urban catalyst and an architectural framework for social and cultural activities, thereby contributing to a positive development of the local community – currently a marginalised area with high crime rates but also an architectural cornerstone in Danish modernism.

The building is sited within a complex urban condition, where a fully operational Light Rail Transit Line crosses the site from above to below ground on a curved half- moon path, dividing Downtown and East Village. In response, the design lifts the main entry over the encapsulated train line. Gently terraced slopes rise up to the heart of the building, allowing for people arriving from every direction to interact with the library.

This project is located above the development axis of the HeFei Financial Business Central, along the South Fei River. This is an ideal location, giving the project tremendous possibilities for future development. By reconstructing the mixed-use building, we hope to redefine the architecture and landscape, as well as interior design and user interaction, thus reflecting the essence of contemporary cosmopolitan lifestyle.