Team: Alessandro Moriconi

Place: Podgorica, Montenegro

A LIVING HUB FOR KNOWLEDGE AND COMMUNITY

The new Central University Library Building is conceived as a focal point, attracting not only the University of Podgorica but also the broader community of Montenegro. The building represents an ideal evolution of the library typology, reflecting the current needs of education while serving as an incubator for new tools to shape the culture of tomorrow. It appears as a constantly active organism, in continuous connection with its surroundings, a 24/7 open lab serving cultural life in all its forms.

A Shared Treasure - The Central University Library Building has a dual and continuously evolving role. On one hand, it stands as a resilient symbol of the culture of tomorrow; on the other, it serves as a guardian of Montenegro’s tangible and intangible heritage, housing a structured array of devices for reading and storing digital content. The functional layout of the interior program arises from the need to integrate, in a complementary manner, the various existing forms of learning, from physical books to digital media. The building thus becomes a productive workshop where analog and multimedia resources share a common archive, complementing and reinforcing each other. It opens to both the future and the past, encouraging spontaneous and free use of its spaces while maximizing natural light, allowing for a flexible and adaptable environment suited to diverse cultural scenarios. A building with a dual purpose: both deposit and laboratory, both server and open platform.

A Unifying Hub - The Central University Library Building has a self-generating architecture: it observes its surroundings and adapts accordingly. It is a building curious about its context, seeking to establish a dynamic relationship with a regenerating urban fabric. The library engages with its surroundings and aims to unify the university campus, not by asserting itself as the main building, but by orienting toward the University Park, the true green heart of the campus. This oasis, with its orderly urban grid, connects the various academic hubs and institutions, creating a harmonious complex.

A Library for Everyone - The Central University Library Building is conceived as an icon of shared knowledge and discovery, with every gathering space designed to maximize encounter and dialogue. Common areas encourage lingering, both indoors and outdoors. Open spaces transform into thematic gardens, the façade becomes a public stepped platform, corners bend to invite entry, the lobby hosts a secret garden, the central atrium reveals a suspended network, and on the upper floors, reading “pixels” emerge. Every area is designed to explore new methods of learning based on the free discovery of three-dimensional spaces, offering a variety of scenarios in which users can autonomously choose their preferred study environment.

The location of the Central University Library assumes a strategic role in the urban development of the university complex. The regular grid of the campus orients existing buildings toward Bulevar Mihaila Lalića, the main thoroughfare connecting the university area, Urban Block 5, and Tološi Forest. The building’s site plan echoes the overall regular language of the campus, rising to a maximum permitted height of 18 meters. Like a conscious organism that learns from and interprets its context, the building rotates on itself, orienting the ground-floor entrances perpendicular to the park’s connecting diagonal, maximizing permeable surface and generating a natural green avenue extending from the entrance to the campus’ main axes along Bulevar Džordža Vašingtona and onward to Tološi Forest.

The upper portion of the volume faces north toward Urban Block 5 and south toward the Rectorate of the University of Montenegro. The building forms a single twisting volume, becoming an identifying element for the city. As the façade rotates, it transforms into a public space, while the upper portion hosts constantly updated interactive signage, effectively functioning as a cultural lighthouse for the city of Podgorica.

The recessed entrance blades embody the original design intent of a solid, monolithic base that gradually lightens as the building ascends. By carving the access points into the façade, the continuity of the external rhythm is preserved, while the entrances are perceived as thresholds emerging from within the volume rather than as interruptions to its solidity.

The design interweaves indoor and outdoor experiences, creating continuous activity between the urban greenery, the central lobby, and the adjacent forest. The landscape is also expressed in the stepped terraces along all four elevations, where climbing plants integrate with seating, seamlessly blending natural and artificial landscapes. The architecture passively adapts to local climatic conditions, with a rhythmic façade design that reinterprets patterns recognizable in Brutalist architecture. The varying thickness and depth of the façade elements respond to shading needs at different levels, gradually tapering toward the roof and reducing interior glare.