Queens University Belfast Builds Huge Library

Queen's University in Belfast is building a brand new library complete with tower looking like something out of a Giles Gilbert Scott design.

The scheme has been designed by Boston, America based Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott who are one of the leaders of in new university library buildings. Helping them out is local architects, the Robinson Patterson Partnership.

The shape of the building evokes a traditional university library complete with red brick, a central tower with mock gothic styling, and contrasting white stonework. Adding a modern touch is the glazing the features prominently on the building walls, and in particular the main tower, something that is less conventional than older university libraries.

This will be welcomed by many who despair at the post-war university campuses litering Britain's cities with their often horrible modern buildings and little by the way of tradition or history in view.

Most older libraries although having towers, used these as depositories for books giving an elegance to what would otherwise be nothing more than a bulky warehouse for books. The tower in the new Queen's University Library will not be shut off and stacked high with books, rather it will have a number of reading rooms inside with largely glass walls apart from stone cornering giving what should be a more inspiration experience for those cramming for their finals.

Adding to the inspiration, and also a feeling of history, will be a reading room named after C.S Lewis, the author who penned the Narnia books and former Queen's Graduate. Sadly, we're pretty sure that the architects have failed to include a wardrobe in their plans that can act as a portal to another world.

In unifying all the campus library services in one place, the scheme is a big step up from the existing library. The present one is able to accommodate 1,200 readers and was built for a mere 6,000 students. This new one should be able to cater for over 2,000 readers and a university that has swollen in size to 24,000 students, almost 10% of the population of Belfast.

Space within the building will be 17,600 square metres rather than the present 13,000 square metres and the amount of volumes it will store will increase from 1 million to 1.5 million.

The floor-space will not be increasing proportionally by as much as the amount of readers nor books that it can contain showing that efficient design can make a huge difference.

Construction is now underway and the university hopes that the £39 million project will be complete by 2009.