Planning Approval for new North Kensington Library

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea has granted planning permission for a c. 42,500 sqft new, 4 storey civic scheme on Lancaster Road in North Kensington. Piercy&Company was appointed by Mace (for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea) to design the new North Kensington Library & Youth Centre building after winning a design competition in early 2016.

The new building will combine library, youth centre, multi-use games area (MUGA) and a third-party education use element. The new library offers three rooms of distinct characters: a grand double height space for reading and study; an informal reading area; and a children’s library.

Stuart Piercy, Founding Director:

“This is our first civic building and collaboration with Mace and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. It is a programmatically complex interlocking series of uses, which helped us articulate and ‘crumble’ the form of the building while retaining some formal civic presence. The internal sequence of rooms vary in scale, texture and warmth but all are visually connected and benefit from carefully manipulated natural light.”

See: North Kensington Library & Youth Centre
Read more: Architect's Journal