DRDH Architects Ltd

Stormen Library

Stormen Library

DRDH Architects

Stormen Library
©David Grandorge

ARCHITECTS
DRDH Architects

PHOTOS
David Grandorge(13)

STATUS
Built

AREA
25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

BUDGET
$10M - 50M

YEAR
2014

LOCATION
Bodø, Norway

TYPE
Educational › Auditorium Library

Stormen Library
©David Grandorge
Stormen Library
©David Grandorge
Stormen Library
©David Grandorge

Through an invited international competition in 2009, DRDH was awarded the design of 2 buildings, a new Concert Hall and Theatre, and a new City library for the city of Bodø in northern Norway.

Both buildings respond to the particularities of their context, situated between city and landscape, whilst maintaining a familial relationship that creates an urban ensemble.

Stormen Library
©David Grandorge
Stormen Library
©David Grandorge

Externally, both façades display a trabeated construction of pre-cast concrete, with an aggregate of local white stone.

Forms rhyme between them.Roofs and towers speak to one another and the library establishes a horizon, across which the Concert Hall surveys the dramatic landscape of sea and mountains.

Stormen Library
©David Grandorge
Stormen Library
©David Grandorge

Internally however the buildings offer quite different characters.

The principal spaces of the Library describe an open internal landscape, which focuses upon the main reading space with its glazed elevation to the harbour.

Stormen Library
©David Grandorge
Stormen Library
©David Grandorge

The building includes a number of other community and education functions.

These include a flexible performance space, a gallery, a multifunction room, media labs and a café. These are defined as a series of rooms that face the city streets.

Stormen Library
©David Grandorge
Stormen Library
©David Grandorge
Stormen Library
©David Grandorge
Stormen Library
©David Grandorge

The building is open to both the city and the harbour, with entrances connected by an internal street.

The children's library, at the top of the building, is more intimate, nestled beneath an inverted roof form and focused around an external play court.

Stormen Library
©David Grandorge


Stormen Library
Stormen Library
Stormen Library

DRDH Architects Ltd
T +44 20 71009003 F +44 20 71009004
DRDH Architects Ltd
Unit 28, De Beauvoir Block, 92-96 De Beauvoir Rd, London N1 4EN, United Kingdom