Architects: Gabriel Verd + Buró4

Year: 2023 (Competition)

Customer: Fundación San Pablo CEU

The project was conceived with the intention of offering a welcoming and representative image of the institution it serves. Its aim is to create an environment that meets educational needs while also integrating aesthetic, cultural, and environmental aspects that promote CEU’s values of Christian humanism.

This library is designed not merely as a place to store and share existing works, but as a space that stimulates both individual and collective creation, generates new resources, and fosters the shared use of public assets. It is envisioned as a creative and recreational center for research, social interaction, study, leisure, and collaboration. FARFALLA aspires to become a place for meeting, exchange, and learning.

Formally, the project adapts its entrance façade to the concave form of the arrival roundabout, reinforcing its intention to serve as a symbol of hospitality and welcome. The design seeks to make the library a distinctive element of the campus and a representative expression of the institution’s values and philosophy.

The project consists of two clearly differentiated areas: the café and the library.
The layout is organized according to both functional and representational criteria. The café—urban in character, lively, and welcoming—opens towards the main entrance of the complex. The library, in contrast, seeks calm and concentration, and is oriented towards the Sequillo stream path. Studying in the serenity of views over nature, under the even light from the north, has been a key premise of this project.

The central axis concentrates all the building’s services. The double-height entrance is situated at the narrowest point of the floor plan—a foyer that not only welcomes visitors to the building but also frames the view and provides access to the rear garden. This central axis aligns with the rest of the campus buildings, while the open-plan café and library areas extend from it as appendages dependent on these service spaces.