Location
Aljouf –Saudi Arabia

Client
Abdulrahman Al Sudairy Cultural Centre

Status
Concept design stage

“ ALJOUF Three stories”

The Project retells the story of Al-Jouf City through connecting the library and its urban fabric with the city’s culture .
The city’s structure is analyzed into three layers that interweaved forming the project’s fabric symbolically and physically.

A. Philosophical Layer:

A.1. Daily Life Order
A.2. Collective Spiritual Order

Al-Jouf city as a Saudi Arabian city is characterized by a strong bond between the daily life order and the spiritual roles embodied in the Islamic Creed. This relation or bond is characterized into two layers; the first is represented in daily life’s order with all its complexities and conflicts, symbolized in our project as all the elements lying under the shade such as buildings, pathways and gardens.
The spiritual order is the second layer which is represented in the upper connecting shade that shades this mundane life order, providing shade and light in the main gathering centers and plazas of the urban fabric, which in turns guarantees facilitation, and guidance.

B. Historical Layer:
The historical layer is divided into three main items

B.1. Central Core - Old Heart
B.2. Attractive Glazed Informal Pavilions - Modern Spirit
B.3. Gathering/ Connecting Shade – Heritage Essence

Al-Jouf city has a history that returns back to the Stone and Copper ages, at the same time, it’s a city that keeps up with the time benefiting from the advantages of the technological and physical developments. It’s also identified with its local heritage that verifies its local identity.

Therefore, three unique historical layers can be deduced for Al-Jouf city; the first in the original library building that represents the core, the second in the transparent glazed pavilions that reflects the contemporary modern spirit and finally the third in the shade, that is a geometrically inspired shape from the city’s heritage and local cultural activities’ handicrafts.

C. Interactive Edutainment Layers:

C.1. Edutainment Gardens & Interactive Plazas – Attraction Places
C.2. Transparent Pavilions – Informal Reading Spaces
C.3. Solid Core - Formal Main Library

Al-Jouf City is known for its repetitive events and festivals throughout the year and at the same time, several educational institutions founded since decades. From here arises the city’s local identity that links education to leisure and festivities, this edutainment nature can be expressed through three layers in our project.
The first layer is represented in the interactive plazas and gardens that sustain any festival and variable events throughout the year.
The second layer, represented in the transparent pavilions specialized for the informal reading spaces that provide the attraction element for the readers; it breaks the barrier between the library’s intimidation as a closed institutional space and the mundane person.
The third layer is characterized in the enclosed heart - that is the old library’s building – that contains the formal reading material, rare books collection and serious research processes that need utter focus and silence.