Peckham Library has been a social as well as architectural success, but the building is simply one part of a larger story: the third part of a plaza that terminates a new urban park (Burgess Park) as it meets the local Peckham High Street, aiming to give a regenerative civic dignity to the locale. Apart from the park itself, the first part of the equation was the arching shelter designed by Troughton McAslan — a gateway to the park, a place to linger, to protect market stalls, and an art-work in coloured lighting; the second built part was the Peckham Pulse, the local fitness centre.
The library rises up to stand tall above its surroundings and locates its raison d’etre — the lending library — on the 5th, upper, floor, requiring lift access.
This engenders a large open space at ground level that integrates itself to the adjacent plaza and also offers a massively protected area akin to standing within the giant orders of some neo-classical, pedimented portico (where people can meet, gather, trade, etc.). Alsop underscores this experience by wrapping a (not quite dense enough) woven stainless steel mesh up the inner facade and across the underbelly of the library above. He explained: “We elevated the library above the ground so that it would be a little bit apart from the normal humdrum life of Peckham […] People would come out of the lift and into another world. We wanted to reveal views of the city that people wouldn’t have seen before. And we wanted the library to be like an attic, where people can concentrate without distractions”. The exterior sports a large white ‘Library’ sign and the dark red prow of the roof-light roof (described by one critic as ‘like a beret’) — adding sculptural effect to the copper-clad L-shape of the main block. The rear of the block — facing north, over a large builder’s yard and toward the not-so-distant towers of the City — is glazed, using a pattern of differently coloured glass sheets.
The pods — apparently inspired by the work of the sculptor Richard Deacon — are constructed from pre-shaped timber ribs, assembled on site, clad in OSB (oriented strand board) and clad in stained 1.5mm plywood sheets cleverly sized and arranged so as to overlap in a simple geometry that also accommodates the curves and takes up construction tolerances (the original intention was to use leather). Inside, the construction is lined with white painted board. There is an office / interview room pod on the ground floor, study pods on one of the intermediate floors and three large ‘pod rooms’ within the main library hall, propped on concrete legs, each of them accessible from the upper gallery. Two of the library pods are fully enclosed and top-lit by roof-lights with internal ‘butterfly’ hinged louvres: shaped plywood panels that are operated by pulleys and small electric motors, so that a degree of black-out can be achieved — crude but effective. Fun has been had with some of the ‘sculptural’ light fittings that look as if they are giant ‘Brillo’ pads.
But 5+ years is a long time in the current life of a London Library (Idea Store? Life Long Learning Centre?) and there are now plans to move on and make changes. Compare with Swiss Cottage Library and the Idea Stores.
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Quay House by Ken Taylor’s practice Quay2c (Kings Grove, SE15; 2002) is a former dairy building and yard converted into the architect’s home, a studio for him and another for his artist partner together with street-frontage flats that are a fine example of how inventive architects can be in imaginatively transforming derelict sites.
It’s all very upbeat and cheerful, complete with bedrooms designed as first floor ‘beach huts’ and two mini-galleries on the street (M2 and 2M2, reflecting their sizes at one and two metre cubes).
It’s a good example of putting such things together.
The artist involved is Julia Manheim.
The Archetype building overtly displaying its ecologically worthy values sits rather incongruously adjacent to the later and more elegant A&M work. Otherwise, it is an interesting enough work whose neo-Venetian wind chimneys lend a distinctly jaunty air.