The Stockholm Library, opened in 1928, was designed by the notable Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund. From its beginning, the library was an important element of the city's architecture as well as its social infrastructure. Nowadays the library asks for a change, following the new society and its challenges.
The project proposes an extension, respecting the monumentality of the existing structure, complimenting it and reinforcing its relation with the surrounding. The new structure should address the lack of scale and program diversity, offering a unique infrastructure where contemporary society would provide their needs and strengthen their relationships.

The Stockholm City Library project involves refurbishing and extending the building, incorporating nearby Annex buildings, Observatory Hill and the city itself. Inspired by Gunnar Asplund’s design principles—spatial harmony, material quality, and poetic expression—the project honors the library’s role as a cultural landmark and storytelling space that resonates across cultures. Drawing on Sweden’s values of political neutrality, hospitality, and cultural inclusivity, it aims to create spaces that welcome minority communities, immigrants, and diverse narratives.

The intervention is organised into four key components: the enhancement and extension of a bazaar area, including the creation of two new courtyard gardens; the refurbishment of the existing library with new, light-filled covered spaces; new functions to the Annex building, connected to the library via an underground passage; and the addition of a dedicated storytelling room with a cloister, creating a unified space that bridges both buildings with an outdoor garden. The design reflects the evolving role of modern libraries as community hubs where people feel a sense of belonging and connection, addressing social isolation by fostering communal interactions. Drawing inspiration from traditional living rooms—where art and decor often narrate cultural stories—the project establishes a platform for storytelling and knowledge exchange.

Ultimately, this project seeks to restore the library’s historic character while introducing new architectural elements that harmonise the Library, Annexes, Hill, and the surrounding cityscape, enhancing infrastructure and creating welcoming spaces that celebrate community narratives.

The project “Other Traditions” explores diverse knowledge systems, emphasizing oral traditions and ecological knowledge exchanges. Set in Stockholm, Sweden, the project focuses on the Stockholm City Library, a significant architectural landmark, and its surrounding areas, including Observatory Hill. The initiative addresses three key issues: optimizing library spaces for informal meetings, creating inclusive spaces for minority groups, particularly refugees, and enhancing biodiversity.
The project proposes connecting the library with a nearby annex using small workrooms, creating an urban forest as a living laboratory, and incorporating culturally resonant spaces like the Qa’a for storytelling and language learning. The urban forest expansion aligns with Stockholm’s environmental goals, enhancing air quality and providing leisure space. The design integrates with the local landscape, ensuring accessibility and monumentality, while also respecting the historical significance of the site.

This project addresses the spatial challenges faced by the historic Stockholm City Library, designed by Erik Gunnar Asplund and opened in 1928. Renowned as a catalyst for library innovation, the library now struggles to accommodate the evolving needs of a modern library, with limited space for diverse study areas, group and private rooms, and community functions. The historical and architectural significance of the original structure constrains internal modifications, making an alternative solution essential.

A new addition is proposed south of the library, positioned between the pond and hill to integrate harmoniously with the natural landscape while respecting Asplund's original vision. This extension connects to the existing building at the ground and basement levels and features flexible, open spaces on the main floors, allowing for a variety of study areas. The upper level houses administrative offices, freeing space in the original library for its intended functions.

Externally, the addition is designed to reflect the library's dual role as a community hub and study space, with materials like stained wood and stone cladding that blend into the surrounding context. This expansion not only addresses spatial limitations but also enhances the library's connection to the city and natural surroundings, ensuring the preservation of Swedish heritage and maintaining the library’s role as a vibrant community resource.

This project is a proposal for an extension to the Stockholm City Library, designed by Erik Gunnar Asplund in 1928. It raises the question of how should a modern democratic library look
like. Given its proximity to the historical library, the project also examines how to respond to and honour Asplund’s legacy. The project offers a new volume which allows the Stockholm City Library an additional 4000 sqm. It takes a position in the landscape, that allows the historical building to maintain its monumentality. Architecturally, the extension continues the dialogue with the existing library through a typological rearrangement, while also establishing its own distinct expression. The project aims to meet the needs of a modern democratic society by creating spaces that support various atmospheres and interactions, both formal and informal.

The protagonist of this year’s graduation studio is the Stockholm City Library. It was deesigned by famous Scandinavian architect Erik Gunnar Asplund (1885-1940) and opened in the spring of 1928. It is a modernist building located in Vasastaden, a very diverse neighbourhood on the Northern Island of Sweden’s capital Stockholm.

The graduation studio, organised by the group Interiors Buildings Cities, started on the premise of two failed competitions that were written out for the Stockholm City library. The project aims to reintegrate the Library into the urban fabric and the city life of Stockholm. It does this by bringing the Bazaar into the building, creating a public, inviting route on the level of Svaevägen Street, and connecting this central city axis to a lowered square that finishes the route throughout the building. While following this public route, the visitor can go up to more focused areas within the library and discover its beautifully kept reading room and Rotunda centrepiece.

The aim is to create a library that not only allows for the individual consumption of knowledge but also facilitates the exchange of knowledge between the inhabitants and visitors of Stockholm.

Stockholm Public Library, as a library from the 1920s, pioneered the use of architectural elements such as the Rotunda and open bookshelves, which softened the oppressive nature of traditional library architecture at that time. It embraced a humanistic approach, fostering a sense of active participation and community vitality among its visitors. However, after a century, the original library's space and knowledge dissemination methods are no longer sufficient to meet the diverse needs of society. This project, based on a failed competition held in 2006 for the expansion and renovation of the library and the advisory brief proposed in 2014 based on the 2006 competition, explores the new social functional positioning and service direction of the library in the face of a multicultural audience and is rooted in the unique political and cultural context of Stockholm. Considering the real conditions of the site and the developmental needs, the project aims to construct a new library to make a supplement of the existing library. It will encompass diverse functional spaces such as an Immersive E-media room, a multilingual reading room, and an urban activity lounge to cater to a variety of audiences. The design also involves the transformation and activation of the overground plaza and underground spaces, facilitating communication and connection between the new and old libraries. The goal is to create an interactive entity that radiates into the urban space.

As a complex public institution that accommodates life and architecture at different scales, the Stockholm Public Library was the focal point for the studio this year. Around the turn of the century, libraries were confronted with increased digitalisation, privatisation of public space and questions about their role in society. The institution has gradually transformed - from a place dedicated to lending books to a complex public space that promotes inclusivity and diversity.

The starting point of the studio is the architectural competition launched in 2006, which sought the expansion of the Library and the possibility of a renewed urban strategy. The challenge then became addressing the identity of the monumental building and the integration of a wide range of programmes, as well as discussing and embracing issues of equality and multiculturalism.

The graduation project aims to extend Asplundhuset, by enhancing existing qualities and connecting the detached, the library and its closest annex. To facilitate a connection between the buildings, a delicate intervention is added, a screen that is able to negotiate the differences between the two buildings, as well as act as a filter between the street and Observatory Hill.

Internally, the intervention aims to relieve unbalanced spaces that are housing several functions that are colliding with each other, allowing for continuity and accessibility. Embracing the challenging aspects of all the different activities that can take place in the library, the proposal is looking at carefully introducing a generous range of social spaces as well as individual ones, contributing to the overall complexity of the institution - a complexity that can rarely be found in the more dispersed and fragmented spaces in the city. Overall, the addition would be valuable in establishing a compelling and logical portrayal of the Public Library as a uniquely inclusive space.

The Observatory Hill forms a cohesive ensemble with the City Library and its three Annex volumes. The new extension aims to unify the ensemble formed by the Stockholm City Library, the Annexes, and the Stockholm School of Economics into a collective campus. This integration strengthens the educational significance of the site and enhances the monumentality of the library within its urban context.

The project acknowledges the Library’s existing structure and its recent additions, introducing a contemporary layer that complements the original design. By reinforcing the established architectural elements, the extension bridges the site’s constraints through the introduction of a continuous roof assembly, a decentralised reading hall and a methodical colonnade, creating a harmonious link between the different volumes.

These features are designed to expand the library's current offerings, creating a more dynamic and versatile environment. The sectional organization of the space introduces a linear pathway that extends from the Rotunda of the existing library into the mezzanine of the new addition, effectively bridging the library’s existing functions with the newly integrated spaces.

For centuries, libraries were physical representations of human knowledge and power held by privileged classes. Over time, they evolved into substantial social and urban infrastructures. From purely knowledge-acquisition institutions, they transformed into inclusive spaces, facing the issues of equality and multiculturalism.
The Stockholm Library, built in 1928 by the Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund was pioneering at that time and among the first, to open its stacks to the public. However, as a near century passed, the library needed to face the ever-changing nature of society and culture. Since 2006, proposals have been made to adjust the library for contemporary challenges, yet none of them have been realised due to the concerns raised by the public and their emotional attachment to the library.
The proposed extension aims to restore the intended characteristics of the educational area around Observatory Hill in Stockholm, including the typology of the modern library and its heritage. In the current situation, the Stockholm Library on its own does not fulfil the typology of a modern library. Currently, it serves as a calm temple of focus, however, it lacks facilities for diverse activities through which people can learn and appears disconnected from the hillside context.
The extension seeks to foster community and provide room for interactions as well as exploration, crucial for a culturally diverse city like Stockholm. Migrants and minorities are often marginalised and are provided with little to no integration opportunities.
On the other hand, with respect to the locals who deeply value the culture and heritage of Stockholm, the objective was to faithfully realize the architect’s concepts while respecting its historical context.
The ‘Spaces in Between’ concept proposes vast public space for new learning activities, without compromising the character of existing establishments. Moreover, it is a physical manifestation of the connection between the library and the observatory hill which together create an educational haven.

The Future Bank involves the transformation and adaptive reuse of the National Bank of Belgium in Brussels. A vast closed off urban block, designed to safeguard the states treasures hasn’t moved with the ever changing ambiguous role of the bank. The project introduces a new public plinth for the city of Brussels to appropriate together with a conglomerate of different office environments for the banks employees. As architect, taking on the role of bricoleur, the existing building structure has been approached as a source of pre-constrained materials. The metaphorical tools of the axe and pocket knife are used to eke out new meanings within the existing building structure. The misfit building will be healed by stitching together on different scales. In that way creating an architectural continuity which allows future adaptation and even an informality that invites to do so. The minimal interventions aim to heal the existing, minimizing our impact on the limited resources that our planet has to offer. The result is a strategy which must be considered before diminishing a building that misfits its contemporary role.

This year, the Interiors Buildings Cities graduation studio
has revolved around the topic of the Future Bank. The project addresses the transformation of the National Bank of Belgium set in Brussels, consisting of a vast triangular urban block of 90.000 m2. The bank, designed by Van Goethem just after the Second World War, is an imposing building with a 200 meter long columnar façade rising up from the adjacent boulevard.

As the city of Brussels has declared itself a doughnut economy, the city is moving away from traditional forms of economics. The city is no longer aiming for unending growth, but aiming for stability, equality and wellbeing. Therefore the bank needs to be reframed within it’s new economic and societal context. What image does the bank want to portray in the 21st century?

Here the project began with the grass route movements, counteracting the heavy façade by creating more intimate spaces within the colonnade. This translated into reframing the bank into several parts with a new end stretching out towards the city. This allowed for more intimate spaces to be created within the vast urban block, creating a new public and inviting face of the bank. A new face in the city.

The National bank of Belgium is envisioned as an open, transparent, publicly engaged institution that draws the city into itself, hopefully becoming a catalyst for change.
The attitude the project takes is to deeply understand and interrogate what exists before proposing changes
– imbibing the studio dictum of ‘economy of means’. As an outcome, the new and old buildings merge into one another and become a congruent whole – and hopefully, a successful ‘piece of city’.

The project is to transform Belgium National Bank into a working environment capable of accommodating diverse activities. Given its economic capacity and social responsibility, the bank also has a public attribute that allows it to accommodate specific public events.
propose to open part of the bank's space as a financial culture center, mainly an exhibition and library related to financial themes. Since the bank is located on the border of the upper and lower town of Brussels, the financial culture center also undertakes the task of connecting the site with an 8 meters height difference. So I created a new public landscape circulation through ramps and three staircases, inviting people to enter the bank to experience the newly inserted public facilities and the existing delicate bank building.
For the office space above the first floor, the existing atrium is very barren and unused. So I propose to put balconies with plants in the atrium to make them like hanging gardens. Employees can relax or chat on the balcony, providing an opportunity to relax from a busy work schedule.

The National Bank of Belgium stands as a fortified conglomerate of historic patchwork structures, within central Brussels. With its inherent role having shifted from that of a safekeeper of physical goods towards a mere office, the building can be made publicly accessible, taking on an active role in the city.
By understanding the existing building through the layers of the shell (as physical infrastructure with a lifespan of about 60 years) and sets (of furniture and partitions which are constantly replaced) the bank can be manipulated and re-used.
The careful clearance of the inner courtyard allows for an extension of the existing ‘shell’. A new framework, inserted within the courtyard, only revealing itself as chapters within the monumental facade.
The bank's excessive storage of outdated ‘sets’ become active elements in the spatial formation of the new bank. Providing an alternative narrative to the rapid regeneration of the office interior.

The Factory and the Ruin is a graduation project that runs in parallel with the call for competition on the site of the Kulturforum so to extend the Neue Nationalgalerie by Mies van der Rohe.
The project is an attempt to both resolve the open-ended landscape of the Kulturforum and to simultaneously reflect upon the artistic production of the century
from which it emerged. For that, both architecture and curatorial practice are in dialogue to give spatial, material and technical representation to the contemporary art gallery, in order to explore
the possibilities of staging and to reduce the conflicts between space of production and space of representation typical of the museum genre.
The project offers a critical dialogue between the gallery spaces in adjacent to the architectural landmarks of the Kulturforum, the city of Berlin and its continuous flux of construction and deconstruction.
Working closely with history, its artefacts, and the traces left on the site, the extensive collection of modern art finds its shrine in a walled-shaded interior calibrated for several art conditions
which can be read as a reinterpretation of the space 'as found'.

The city is permanently in transition. The material objects that compose the city are continuously subject to adjustments, improvements or replacements. A bridge is being restored, a window frame is being replaced and an office is transformed in apartments. The process of transformation has been part of the city ever since its origin and will continue as long as the city stands.

The Stadtbauhutte is an effort to make the city’s transformation process an
accessible project that is taken on collectively. A project that is making the transformation visible to the user of the city. The stadtbauhutte is a supporter of preservering material beauty and the craftsman’s competence. And the stadtbauhutte is encouraging the exchange of knowledge and skills.