Holcim Awards Acknowledgement prize 2011 Latin America

Library with integrated community outreach, Rosario, Argentina

Type of project:	Building and civil engineering works
Start of construction:	2012
Main author:	Alfredo Tapia, AFT Arquitectos, Argentina
Further author:	a team of 19 additional architects and engineers, AFT Arquitectos, Argentina

Representatives of the winning team of the Holcim Awards Acknowledgement prize 2011 Latin America for Library with integrated community outreach, Rosario, Argentina (l-r): Gaston Atelman, Martín Fourcade and Alfredo Tapia, AFT Arquitectos, Argentina

Project description
The Trojan Library project was initiated by the municipal government of Rosario in response to the nation’s poor results in a 2009 worldwide evaluation of 15-year-olds in mathematics, science and reading. The strategy provides both the infrastructure of the library and a vast network of supplementary activities to generate flow-on use of the facility in Argentina’s third largest city with a population of 1.2 million. To achieve this goal in addition to the core function as library, a number of supplementary activities are proposed that take up the challenge of attracting potential library users from the 150,000 working-class inhabitants of the precinct. The suite of socio-cultural services incorporated into the design includes sporting facilities, a cinema, skatepark, station for the city bicycle system, childcare center and dance studios. The project proposes an economy of means via a simple structure with modular character, as well as an appropriate application of technical features and materials aligned with the frugal approach of the project. 

Comment of the Holcim Awards jury Latin America
The jury recognizes the mature quality of the overall project and its well-balanced architectural contextual qualities. The thorough study of the needs of the future users is seen as its strongest element together with the elegant transcription of modesty into the architectural language, using a simple plywood frame construction that creates a highly suitable human atmosphere.

Descripción del proyecto y el comentario del jurado en español (PDF, 20KB)

Image gallery
Library with integrated community outreach, Rosario, Argentina
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