Biblioteca Norte.

The site was a car park behind a row of houses on the square. The city asked for a library, but also for a building that would finish the square's north side and give it back a public front.

We set the library's main reading room on the first floor, level with the old houses' balconies, so it looks out over the square like a long, shared window.

The façade is a grid of dark precast concrete frames, 1.6 metres deep, cast in sections and stacked on site. On the south, the frames are deep and the glass is set far back; on the north they are shallow, almost flush. At the corners the grid resolves into horizontal bands.

We drew sun paths for every opening and adjusted each reveal by a few centimetres, so that no reader's desk receives direct sun between May and September.

A spiral stair at the centre of the building links all four floors, with bookshelves wrapped around its well and wide landings where readers can sit. A second, straight stair between dark concrete walls leads down from the square to a lecture hall for two hundred people.

Children's rooms are on the ground floor, opening onto a planted courtyard with a single old plane tree saved from the car park.

The frame was topped out in spring 2026, and the first concrete windows are now in place on the south façade. Opening is planned for autumn 2027.

Through construction, the site hoarding carries a reading list chosen by the city's librarians, updated every month.