Location: Paris, France.

Architect: frederic schoeller.

The multimedia library in La Garenne Colombes is a contemporary cultural facility located in an urban area of single-family houses and small-scale apartment buildings. The building’s design creates unity through a simple geometry enclosed by two symmetrical curves that form a leaf-shaped figure. The concrete curve in the back serves to contain, while the front glass curve opens onto the “place de la liberté” through silkscreened sunshades. A lower volume covered with vegetation brings a garden into the center of the plot. Louvers with rounded openings in the vegetal fabric light the exhibition space. The lobby’s transparency allows visitors to perceive the 35-meter depth of the plot, striated by vertical lighting. The reception area and multimedia library on the ground floor are double height spaces. The exhibition space opens onto an interior garden lit by natural overhead light from the louvers, while the auditorium hidden behind a curved facade in wood looks like a sculpture echoing the curve of the facade at the front. The multimedia and study areas on the mezzanine have a separate access, allowing them to have different opening hours than the multimedia library. The reading areas form a balcony overlooking the “place de la Liberté” and are located on the first floor, opening onto the ground-floor spaces and interior gardens. The glass slats of the sunshades allow a serene brightness to filter into those spaces.