Location: Oslo, Norway.

Architect: Lund Hagem and Atelier Oslo.

The new Deichman Main library in Oslo, set to open in 2020, was designed by architects Atelier Oslo and Lund Hagem, who won the open international competition for the project in 2009. The library will be located in the newly developed harbour area of Bjørvika, close to the Opera and Barcode. The building’s form is a response to the surroundings, with cantilevered areas over the sightline to the Opera and the street towards the east, solving the space requirements for the library while providing the building with a distinctive shape and a clear orientation towards the city and the library plaza in front. The interior spaces are organized around three diagonal light shafts that spread light and create contact between the different levels. The new Deichman will be a modern library built with a human scale and where the human being is in the center, not the stack of books. The building area is approximately 20,000 sqm gross area with library, service and office areas of approximately 13,500 sqm. The area is divided into five main floors above ground level and one basement level. The continuous library space is extending through all levels with open media collections. The main construction is made of concrete, with the most distinctive construction element being the folded concrete slab in the top roof that solves the main cantilever of 18 meters towards the Library plaza and the cantilever over the street, Tverrgata, in the east. The facade is based on the organization of translucent and transparent areas that will make the building glow at night, with solid areas materialized by rounded, floor to ceiling, composite elements GFRP, distributed evenly along the facade. Towards the ground, the library has a completely transparent glass facade that opens the library towards the surrounding city and makes the ground floor an extension of the surrounding public spaces. The new Deichman Main library will strengthen Oslo as an international and multicultural capital, with the vision of being Europe’s most innovative, visible and accessible public library and cultural common.