Kalkværket Library

The library sits on the foundations of a lime works that closed in 1974. We kept the old kiln walls where they still stood and built the new reading rooms on top of them, in concrete cast against the same pine boards that once lined the kilns.

The plan is a simple stack. Children’s library and café on the ground floor, open to the harbour square. Study rooms above, then one long reading room at the top, where a single large window frames the water and nothing else.

Daylight was the first line of the brief, and it shaped every section. North-facing glazing, deep reveals and the timber ceiling keep the light even across a long winter afternoon, without blinds.