A university library, seminar rooms, offices, doctoral research rooms, an archive, and a café are tightly bundled in a taught cubic volume that negotiates a site cramped by existing building adjacencies and set-back lines. The scheme nevertheless allows for moment of openness and spatial generosity. A central atrium cleaves the volume in half revealing roof terraces and vertical gardens and provides passive ventilation for the entire building. The library expands in height and is expressed in the façade as glazed area, a gaping void interrupting the continuity of the cladding. The top two floors are composed of six large timber trusses with composite slabs running in between. The bottom floors are organized around a timber column grid. The structural core is a prefabricated composite structure. The façade is clad in continuous ribbons of wooden louvers, becoming sparser to accommodate for fenestration.