In this design, collaboration and information exchange is secondary to the journey in search of books: the sacredness is marked by the nine square grid revealing three towers, the “aedificium”: where the books are stored. The sacred towers hold knowledge behind a translucent veil, with flying stairs and bridges connecting the towers teasing the mind to solve a kind of riddle. Mystery is created through ascendancy, as each floor has a unique series of subjects, vantage points and ever-changing uses. The space generated in between connects the earth to the heavens through asymmetrical vertical crevasse.
The building is based on a 9 square, 18m grid placed on the site. 9 is the number of the infinite, auspicious and important in every culture, religion, philosophy, and is associated with the infinite and the divine. An appropriate number for a library. Designed like a magic square known by mathematicians, a 3x3 grid of numbers, much like the Rubik’s cube; the library is a puzzle, a riddle, a journey, a maze. This square is grounded and changed by the forces from the context in which it exists. It becomes the thing which it is meant to house: the beauty of the journey to find knowledge.