Jeddah Library Court.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
A two-storey 4,200 m² public library organised around a 22-metre courtyard and a shallow reflecting pool. The exterior is wrapped in a latticed white-wood mashrabiya brise-soleil, tuned to cut solar gain by 44 per cent while leaving the reading rooms open to the afternoon sea breeze.
§ DWG-008 · the building
A pool, a screen, and quiet air.
Jeddah's west wind arrives each afternoon, after the sun has loaded the concrete and paving. The library is planned as a thick square ring around a 22-metre open court, with the reflecting pool placed on the axis of entry. Air is drawn across the water, drops by 4–6°C, then moves through the reading rooms and exhausts beneath the roof brise-soleil.
The mashrabiya screen is laser-cut and CNC-machined Aleppo-pattern white wood, made south of Jeddah by a third-generation woodworking family. The lattice was set out with the workshop master as 200×400mm panels, small enough for two people to carry while still reading from the street as one continuous screen.
The library opened in March 2023 with 42,000 books in Arabic, English, French, and Urdu, plus a permanent room for Hejazi maritime traditions. By the end of its first year it was Jeddah's most-visited civic building. The commission received the World Architecture Festival's Best in Cultural award in 2023.