A new library project in Shinjuku.
-
The library represents a house of wisdom and knowledge.
From the times of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, libraries are magnificent temples of culture, where students or simply people with an education go to discover new things moved by curiosity and thirst of knowledge.
Not everyone has the same consideration of libraries: most people could see it as an inaccessible or even useless places. For this reason, IKKAI project aims to open the space of the library to all the people through the use of technology and public space. A new concept that will radically change the classic image of the library just through a simple action of subtraction: it will have no physical books anymore.
IKKAI’s unique feature will be one massive server containing infinite collections and updates of books and media that are shared with all the guests inside the library and just outside of it in the surrounding plaza. Everyone will be free to stop and start reading anything -from the newspaper to the last bestseller or manga- just using its own tablet or smartphone.

Going inside the library will become an easy and natural action.

IKKAI presents no floors division but just a single ramp going up to the top of the building and where at any point you can sit on a sofa or just on the floor. IKKAI is a vertical plaza where you can stop to study or just to take a break.

The anti-library is the open library.