Peckham Library

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Key Information

Established	8 March 2000; 25 years ago (2000-03-08)
Location	London Borough of Southwark
Coordinates	51°28′28″N 0°04′09″W / 51.47433°N 0.06930°W / 51.47433; -0.06930
Type	Public Library
Part of	Southwark Libraries
Collection size	40,848
Country	United Kingdom
Operator	Southwark London Borough Council
Website	https://www.southwark.gov.uk/libraries
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Peckham Library is a library and community building situated in Peckham in south-east London, United Kingdom. It was designed by Alsop and Störmer,^[1] engineered by AKT II and won the Stirling Prize for Architecture in 2000.^[2]

The building is shaped like an inverted capital letter 'L', with the upper part supported by thin steel pillars set at apparently random angles. The exterior is clad with pre-patinated copper.^[1][3]

The Stirling Prize judges approved the building's approach. Alsop has taken the plan footprint of a conventional library and elevated it to create a public space beneath the building and to remove the quiet reading space from street level noise. The remaining, supporting buildings on the ground and 1st floors house the information and media centre.^{[citation needed]} The building has five floors in total, with the library service taking up the fourth floor.^[3]

The library opened to the public on 8 March 2000, with an official opening by Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Chris Smith, on 15 May 2000.

The building attracted 500,000 visitors in its first year of opening in the wake of its receipt of the prize. This dropped to approximately 420,000 for 2006.^{[citation needed]}

SuperC [de], a student service centre building at the RWTH Aachen in Germany was built in 2006, which has been compared to Peckham Library with a similar L design.^{[citation needed]}

The library features diverse activities for both children and adults.

• 
  The north facing rear façade of the building.
• 
  Exterior
• 
  View showing the diagonal columns
• 
  Interior view of meeting room pod
• 
  Main library space
• 
  Main library space
• 
  View of central pod
• 
  Similarly shaped building named SuperC [de] at RWTH Aachen, Germany

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Peckham Library.

• Peckham Library on Southwark Council site
• Peckham Library & Media Centre architecture page on Open University site
• Peckham Library, London, UK guide on BBC h2g2 site