Frances Zhao

Site-Fountainbridge Library

The Fountianbridge Library is located at 137 Dundee Street, Edinburgh, at the intersection of Dundee Street and Murdoch Terrace. It is a listed building in use in the Fountainbridge area of Edinburgh and is run by the City of Edinburgh Council. The building has a long history, having been designed and built as the Fountainbridge Library and opened in 1940.

The building is currently in good condition and all floors are in regular use, except for the basement. Natural light flows throughout the building thanks to the large windows and skylights that are located throughout the sides and ceilings of the building. In addition, the design is almost symmetrical on both sides with the tower as the axis, creating a distinctive architectural character.

Concept

In this project,  all public areas are distributed around the central area, thus creating a central outward circulation that allows visually impaired users to easily identify the layout of the space.

In addition, the function of the space offers a variety of areas for leisure, entertainment, learning and creativity. At the same time, the specially designed climbing area will be easily and independently accessible to visually impaired young people, thus encouraging their physical development and exercise.

Also, tactile paving is used to guide the user throughout the floor. And contrasting colours are also used for the furniture to facilitate identification.

The main users of the project are visually impaired youths aged 13-17 years old, who are at the stage of physical development where proper sports and exercise are essential. Climbing is a good exercise for the muscles of the whole body and requires relatively little vision.

There are two different climbing areas in the project. One is the climbing net in the centre of the building. The entire climbing device is a tube consisting of nets and steel fixed hoops. People can climb through this tube to the first floor, making it a fun and challenging climbing area.

Another climbing area is the climbing wall. The climbing wall area is divided into two different levels of difficulty. Climbing wall01 is a more difficult area with twisting walls and occupies higher floors. Climbing wall02 is a training area with flat walls only in GF.

In addition, different textures and colour paintings are used to indicate different routes and heights, while an automatic weight sensing system provides trigger lights to indicate the position of the holds.

The social area on the first floor is a multifunctional area for people to play games, exchange activities, chat and more.

It has tables and chairs with pulleys and height differences that can be placed together to form one large table for more people to mingle together. Also because of the large window, there is a vision interaction with the climbing wall next to it.