Nagasaki City Library, PFI

This library is situated in the middle of Nagasaki City center, where it was built on the site of Nagasaki City Shinkozen Elementary School, which served as an emergency aid station immediately after the nuclear bombing. It was planned as a PFI project which integrated design, construction, operation, and maintenance management. With the concept of “build a new way, and a new town, in the center of the city,” we planned the “Cross Road,” an atrium space that is cross-shaped on plan and can be walked through. This Cross Road is shared by a library, hall, community center (assembly room) and aid station memorial (exhibition room), with a floor plan that is easy to understand and usable by anyone. The exterior is a facility that carries on the image of brick and Isahaya stone buildings, to give a feeling of the history of Nagasaki’s streets, combined with a glazed curtain wall that gives a feeling of openness. The curtain wall has “vegetation louvers” with planted foliage, proposing a new style of building planting. These vegetation louvers have the function of adjusting insolation, and they help to create pleasant spaces for reading while looking out through greenery to the street. The library functions have introduced automated management systems wherever possible, including self-closing book stacks, automatic book sorters, and an automatic conveyor belt system to return books from the book post. This is a plan for a new style of library.