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2023 UDAD 🏆 Awards

Gold Winner – NEW BEIC by OFFTEC S.R.L.

Based on the Municipality announcement of Milan for the international design competition of “New B.E.I.C” – European Library of Information and Culture, our main purpose of the design is to build a new cultural reference point for, Milan and Europe where materiality and dematerialization support each other.

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Gold 🏆 Winner
Urban Design & Architecture Design Awards 2023

NEW BEIC
Cultural Architecture (Concept)

Firm
OFFTEC S.R.L.

Architect/Designer
FLAVIAN BASILE

Design Team
OFFTEC S.R.L.

Location
MILAN

Country
Italy

Photographer/Copyright
©OFFTEC S.R.L.

The main idea considered a library as a platform for conserving, and communicating, contemporary cultural heritage and therefore, indirectly, developing the future. a platform where feasible to produce contemporary culture can be developed: A library for everyone. BEIC follows the idea of a book not even outside but also inside. The main challenge was to create a link between the new library building and its surroundings by working with open public spaces to increase the synergies between the new building and its urban context. The project is inserted at the corner of two streets, weaving a continuity with the existing and future operations, becoming an essential lever for the transformation of this sector. The site is interpreted as an extension, surrounding park, all within an urban block green space that is along the porta Vittoria railway axis and continues to the Parco Vittorio fomenting combine with the street lines shape the in the initial point to create the gride. A regular grid of squares is extruded to create the perimeter block that borders the site. New BEIC is a public building. Its access and primary circulation are based on emphasizing the pedestrian connections with the adjacent streets, park paths, and access stairways to the existing station. The ground floor of the building is intended for the reception of users, yes materializes through spaces intended for reception, info desk, bookshop, newsstand, lobby, cafeteria, auditorium, and family areas with children. The entrance area is conceived as an open space, a space fluid and filter between the library and the city, the visiting card of a hospitable place and friendly, also open to those who do not need to use the services that the library offers. A space designed to be ready to change, and flexible with respect to the various needs related to the organization of the majority of various events planned by the B.E.I.C. Foundation. The connection between blocks A and B, placed at a height (+8.40m) from the street, determines the “bridge” character that the building assumes in the urban scene, making the new B.E.I.C. accessible from the park. The connection is also of a functional type since it unites environments and activities related to the theme of innovation in the cultural field. Block A includes the section “Music, entertainment, gaming, and new media”, here the possibility of experimenting with languages is offered to creatives of music and audiovisual, both to acquire and improve individual critical skills and to implement the skills aimed at creative use; in block B instead, we find the Department Digital (avant-garde center for digitization) and Innovation Lab, at the service of students, researchers, and enthusiasts of the genre. The departments and library areas are located on all the other floors. The heart of the BEIC community is located in the atrium. The volumes are rotated concerning the surrounding views and create terraces for public space.  The screen on facade panels provides a dynamic feel and special ambiance both day and night. The exquisite individual facade systems give rise to a variety of patterns. You can see the story of the book from the facade, the technological way which is more related to the future of the new generation.