Private Library Sb Private Library Sb is a structure that encompasses both the functions of a library and residence. The site is located in Saitama Prefecture in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area of Japan. The site is an irregular shape – a narrow strip leading off the main road, before spreading out further along – with an area of 175 m2, and Private Library Sb is designed as a small library accommodating a collection of some 20,000 books as well as a residence for a family of five. Upon planning this project, it was essential to reexamine and redefine how a library should be as a type of architecture. The books are an accumulation of the client’s life, selected through filters of experience, knowledge, lifestyle, and taste. This is why it seemed obvious to create a design that keeps the residence and library space together without cutting each other off, with intertwining circulation routes. The mezzanine space measures 2.5 m x 2.5 m x approx. 23 m, maximizing the absolute volume of books that comes into view, and looks as if it is floating off the ground by a buoyant force of wisdom projected from the books. Though the library may be extremely small, as its main objective is to offer knowledge on a specific topic and it is open to the public only by appointment, the space is more than sufficient to serve its purpose. Just as libraries in Japan originated from book vaults, this structure has in effect turned out to be a library in a similar process while also being a residence. Private Library Sb has thus been redefined as a library |