Global architecture firm Snøhetta has completed a sculptural library complex for Temple University in Philadelphia. The Charles Library facility opened its doors for the Fall 2019 semester a few weeks ago and is designed as a collaborative social learning space that reinterprets the traditional research library typology.

Wrapped by a collection of generous plazas and filled with dramatic, multi-story spaces shaped around dramatic architectural volumes, the building aims to unite traditional academic resources with interdisciplinary and technology-focused facilities and student-oriented study and social spaces. 

The lower levels of the building are faced with vertical bands of granite to match the campus buildings surrounding the library, while the complex is capped by a glass-walled upper story and a green roof. The building is bisected by a large three-story atrium space that sits at the heart of the library and runs through a corner of building. The atrium is marked on three sides of the building by glassy entrances that are framed by large wooden arched portals. 

Inside the library, a central oculus carves through the mass of the library, bringing celestial daylight into the space from the roof. The circular skylight cuts through a doubly-curved interior vault, resulting in irregular curved geometries that mimic those shaped around the building entrances. 

The library facilities, meanwhile, are populated by a top-floor browsing library, study rooms, and a "BookBot" Automated Storage Retrieval System (ASRS) system that can access the over 1.5 million volumes that are stored within the library. The system not only reduces the amount of space the library dedicates to book storage, but also allows the facility to make materials that had previously been stored off site available to students on-demand. The system can ultimately store up to 2 million volumes.

The project was developed by Snøhetta in partnership with Stantec; Snøhetta also provided design, landscape, and interior architecture services for the project.