Knowledge illuminates life

Built at the site of the 1991 terror attack, the new library in Vic pays tribute to the victims through the values of tolerance, culture and social integration.

In 1991 an atrocity struck Vic in the form of a terrorist attack. Ten people died. Today, at the same site the new city library has been built, as a symbol that knowledge is one of the best pathways to understanding others.

As we already know, architecture also helps to build values. The studio BCQ Architecture wanted the new Pilarin Bayés library in Vic to be a monument to knowledge and to life, tolerance and culture, to remembrance and to the future. Also to sustainability, as one of the simplest ways to face that future.

To meet this sustainable goal, the creators have used ACCOYA@, one of the most resistant and sturdy timbers on the market.

Exterior wooden curtain wall

ACCOYA® makes it possible to build a sustainable façade with curtain wall where wood is used on the exterior. This possible thanks to acetylated wood, in other words, wood subject to a 100% natural treatment that makes the material extraordinarily resistant.

The wood obtained after this method takes on a superior dimensional stability, with good strength in the cycles of expansion and contraction. Its weather resistance also improves, as the molecular alteration of the wood after this process means that moulds and insects no longer recognise it as a source of food.

In virtue of this robustness, ACCOYA® has a written guarantee of 50 years in use classes 1, 2 and 3 (at ground level), and 25 in use class 4 (underground or submerged in fresh water).

Natural light, vegetation and remembrance

The authors proposed that all the building’s reading spaces be oriented toward the garden. The design of the façade lets in plenty of natural light. At the same time, the interior provides a perfect view of the exterior vegetation and, in particular, the trees, ten in total: one for each victim of the attack.

Each of the lights that illuminate the rooms at night have an inscription in different alphabets: knowledge illuminates life. A phrase with a metaphoric power that is transmitted every night, when the light emanating from the library bathes the surrounding streets with the design of its façade with wooden curtain wall.

(To see all the images, consult the project file.)