Kaeng Krachan Library
Kaeng Krachan Library is a project located on the rural part of Thailand, among the surrounded by shady tree and peaceful nature of Petchaburi Province. The initiation of this project started from the owner wanting to build a public library as a gift to the community. The space should be suitable for all kind of user. Because there is only one librarian looking after this place, the architect designed function to have easily to use and manage.
As for zoning and programing, the architect merged the active and passive program together. The space will be divided into 5 main boxes. 4 boxes aside will be used as shelves for keeping all the book and separate them into categories. One box in the middle is a space for the librarian. Each box is a one-story building that connected to each other by flexible function space, to accommodate convenient of access and simple usage for people of all ages in the community.
In every architectural design proceed, it is important to understand the context including weather and geography of the site in order to design in order to design consistent with usability of people in the community. In this case, it’s not only effected the overall form of the building, but it’s also effected the material that will be used in the design.
For the Kaeng Krachan Library, the architect chose the material that can be find easily in the local area such as steel, wood or translucent corrugated sheet as a part of the design. The way material is applied and combined can make the building even more interesting. Moreover, with a lot of rain in the area, it is important that the material that will be used in the design should prevent the space inside from wind, rain but still allowing natural light and ventilation to flow within the space.
Kaeng Krachan Library is a public library as a gift to the community so that people in this area can access for education. It is not limited to be a local person, everyone can access for study about
design and material. Because the library uses translucent corrugated sheet as roof and wall, nature light can enter into that it makes saving energy for the library. The architect designed the library to not too dense, but it can feel friendly to environment and community.
