Access for all

Libraries, especially city libraries are currently looking for a new identity. The role of the Internet and the increase of digitalization of books has changed consumers’ reading and research habits and has put in question the original role of a library as a storehouse of knowledge. Apart from the structural adaption of media that is offered, the library has a huge potential for urban development in public space. How will the library of the future look like? What are the needs and demands, what are the spatial qualities and how can a library building be structured – between digital networking and local context, between communication and concentration, encounter and solitariness, impulse and isolation? Based on a case example in Berlin-Moabit, a diversity of spatial scenarios are shown by architecture students of the Technical University of Berlin in the context of their Bachelor Thesis at the Architectural Design and Construction department of Prof. Ralf Pasel.