Newark Bastion Library
Atelier 02: Urban Monastery
Project
Newark Bastion Library exists to protect and preserve the literature and knowledge housed within the towering, windowless, circular walls, creating separation from the wild forest outside to form a foreboding yet serene interior. A vast light well stretches from the basement floor to the sky above, delivering daylight to all levels of the proposal while protecting the books housed here from the harmful rays of direct sunlight. The proposal includes an auditorium, café, bookbinding workshop, basement archive, book-shelving, and the reading floor. Each boasts a subtly distinct atmosphere, with the café becoming lofty and aerated, while the basement feels rigid and impactful. Each space's unique environment is underpinned by the use of space deep within the solid walls.
Spatial Concept
The concept of permanence creates a desire to protect and sustain knowledge, materialising as a thick concrete wall dictating the internal layout, inspired by the Newark Castle ruin on-site. The second core concept, the temporality of natural light, informs arched openings at the top of the walls, permitting sunlight entry and casting shadows across the bare concrete structure, providing definition and dynamism. The concept of permanence informs the landscaping, employing concrete half-walls, slicing through the spaces, intended to represent the dilapidated foundations of previous instalments to the site. Vegetation overwhelms the space, superimposing an ancient history on the Bastion while alluding to its eventual consumption by the inevitable nature of time.
