The Old Market Library is built within a 100-year-old market building in a slum area. The designers involved the local community by interviews and meetings throughout the process. Reluctant at first, they came to develop a sense of pride in the project - essential for its long-term future. Local and reused materials are employed throughout, with wooden boxes serving as bookshelves, and salvaged wood from the immediate surroundings as cladding. The dilapidated condition of the existing roof and walls necessitated a self-supporting internal structure of higher-quality timber, and this was sourced from the local second-hand wood shop. The floor is elevated above the level of the regular rainy-season floods.
Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture