Project Details
- Project Name
- Malawi Library and Master Plan
- Architect
- Steven Holl Architects
- Project Types
- Education
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Size
- 70,000 sq. feet
- Shared by
- Hanley Wood
- Project Status
- On the Boards/In Progress
2018 P/A Awards
Citation
“I was super impressed with how much architecture could be derived out of fairly simple means. We need more buildings like this.” —juror Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter, AIA
Over the course of more than a century, the ancient Javanese textile-dyeing method of batik has become a de facto native art form in southern and eastern Africa, and the technique’s brilliant colors and lively patterns find a formal echo in Steven Holl Architects’ design for the Malawi Library and Master Plan in the capital city of Lilongwe. A needed piece of social infrastructure for the critically underdeveloped nation, the project will be a welcome presence whether or not its indebtedness to the local batik tradition is immediately evident.
Housing 70,000 square feet of book storage, offices, and study and meeting spaces, the library is composed of a series of wing-like concrete rooftop canopies, fabricated off-site and held aloft by a forest of forked diagonal piers. Though the swirling patina on the translucent glass curtainwall is faintly reminiscent of folk art, the chief impression is simply that of a spacious, ultra-modern, functional facility. The objective of the novel roofing system is to diffuse light and collect solar energy via photovoltaic panels, features that work together with passive ventilation systems and rainwater collection (including a dramatic indoor cistern next to the circulation desk) to reduce the building’s net energy consumption to zero.
Viewed in plan, the firm’s overall campus scheme is a crazy quilt of discrete landscaped zones surrounding buildings for physical education, orientation, and individual academic programs. Each building, in turn, is distinguished by a striking geometrical footprint, from U shapes to circles to blocks—no two alike but responding and corresponding to one another with a compelling compositional logic. Especially as seen in Holl’s famously elegant watercolors, the master plan does indeed recall the kaleidoscopic batik of Malawi, conjuring the look and feel of the country known as “the Warm Heart of Africa.”
Project Credits
Project: Malawi Library and Master Plan, Lilongwe, Malawi
Client: Miracle for Africa Foundation
Architect: Steven Holl Architects, New York . Steven Holl, FAIA (design architect, principal); JongSeo Lee (senior associate-in-charge); Hannah Ahlblad, Lourenzo Amaro de Oliveira, Okki Berendschot, Suk Lee (project team)
Associate Architects: Junglim Architecture, Seoul, South Korea
Structural Engineer: Silman
M/E/P Engineer: Transsolar
Size: 6,500 square meters (69,965 square feet), library; 142,500 square meters (1.53 million square feet), master plan
Cost: Withheld
Read about the other winners of the 65th Annual Progressive Architecture Awards.
Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
Malawi, often called “The Warm Heart of Africa,” has a population of 16.7 million. It is among the smallest countries in Africa and among the world’s least developed countries with the world’s lowest income per person (according to World Bank Report). The Miracle for Africa Foundation aims to serve Malawi's capital Lilongwe by developing a new, sustainable university campus. The foundation commissioned the firm to create the master plan, which is inspired by paintings of Malawi batik artists (Image 3 and 4). Following the master plan, the foundation asked the firm to design the central library. The new library is the first installment of the Miracle for Africa Foundation campus and will provide 70,000 square feet of space for books, archives, reading rooms, classrooms, offices, and an open forum. The architectural aim of the library is to utilize passive design to ensure long-term, cost-effective sustainability. The building will accomplish this goal by bringing in the maximum amount of cool natural light while powering the building via solar energy. An ascending array of roof elements each have a gentle curve, like the wind moving across a field, giving orientation to all interior spaces. The natural light bounces off curved prefabricated roof structures made of "ductile concrete" to for space like a "field within a field." The flexible solar panels along the roof create an ecological engine, supplying energy to the library itself and other campus buildings. The free-plan library has meeting rooms, reading rooms, and archives encased in glass for humidity control and sound isolation. A locally crafted bamboo screen enclosure allows the rest of the library to breath with natural ventilation and Net-Zero energy consumption. A central, rain collecting pool indicates the main circulation desk and ripples through the roof geometry like a wave field in cloud-like light.
