Anchoring on the Edge: A New Library for Shrewsbury

This year-long BA studio project responded to a brief in the Continuity in Architecture Third Year Atelier, in collaboration with Shrewsbury Council. The brief provoked a re-imagining of the existing library in the town, to provide a new cultural destination south of the city centre. Using the Atelier ethos of contextualism as a theoretical starting point, the scheme roots the intervention in the history of the site: as a quarry, and on the boundary line between the medieval town and the open expanse of the park. It aims to ‘anchor’ the end of key routes of movement through the city, while sitting on its perimeter.  A sequence of spaces are set up to navigate this boundary, drawing the visitor towards the main spaces of the library and outwards into the park through the use of ‘leading’ and ‘pressured’ points.  The proposal imagines the library as a place with an inherent tension between its collective purpose as a cultural and civic centre and the individual act of reading and study. There are a variety of intimate niches, as well as main spaces for performances, talks and community activities. The use of rammed concrete as a material ‘embeds’ the building into the landscape, making reference to the layers of history on the site, offering a geological character, and relating to the recent excavations of parts of the old town wall.