Havnegade Pavilion

The plan is a single curve. Rather than square the building to the street grid behind it, we let the glass follow the bend of the quay, so the reading room turns steadily through the afternoon and the low western light rakes along the façade instead of striking it flat. Nobody sits in glare. The desks nearest the water get their best hour at four; the ones at the northern tip get theirs at seven, which in June is still full daylight.

Below the glass, the plinth does the civic work. Its steps are wide enough to sit on and shallow enough to be a route, and they carry a continuous line of recessed light that stays on after the reading room closes. The building's most-used room, in practice, is the one with no roof.

Inside, exposed glulam beams span the full depth so the floor plate is free of columns. The plinth is laid in brick reclaimed from the warehouse that stood here until 2019 — 41,000 of them, cleaned by hand, which is the single largest line in the carbon budget and the reason the building came in under it. We spent the detailing budget on two things: the frameless corner joints in the glass, and the acoustic felt hidden above the beams that keeps a room this hard from ringing.