consultation rooms. There will be also a specific
section devoted to Kwame Nkrumah, where his
personal archive and his writings will be gathered.
The last floor will be a panoramic viewpoint with
restaurants and spare time activities. The basement
will provide a 300 seats auditorium built for
conferences and other events. A separate entrance
will grant the auditorium’s autonomy from the
library.
Environmental benefits and sustainability
Kwame Nkrumah Presidential Library will be a
bioclimatic building. It will provide high standard
heat, acoustic and visual comfort all year long,
thanks to the balance between few elements: shape,
materials and technology. The Library will be built
with local and renewable materials, such as wood.
Specifically, the refined woods salvaged in Volta
lake. The photovoltaic panels placed on the roof
will provide electricity. The building will be also
equipped with a water recovery system for resource
saving and a natural ventilation system. Solar
protection will be granted by wide embossed attics
and reflecting glasses to prevent heat accumulation.
The green will represent an important source of
cooling. AD
ABOUT MARIO CUCINELLA aRCHITECTS
The studio is based in Bologna and employs a team of architects and engineers from various countries, has
solid experience in architectural design with particular attention to energy and environmental issues, industrial
design and technological research through collaboration with universities and research programs of the
European Commission.
Mario Cucinella, born in 1960, founded Mario Cucinella Architects in Paris in 1992 and in Bologna in 1999.
He received since the beginning of its activities, major awards in international competitions. From 1998 to
2006 he taught at the Faculty of Architecture in Ferrara (Italy) and since 2004 he is ‘Honorary Professor’ at
the University of Nottingham. In 2013 he was ‘Guest Professor in Emerging Technologies’ at the Technische
Universitat in Munich while in 2014 he is ‘Guest Professor’ at Architectural Faculty Federico II, Naples.
Cucinella holds regular lectures in Italy and abroad. He is currently Director in the Scientific Committee of
PLEA (Passive and Low Energy Architecture). He works as a tutor with Renzo Piano to the project G124 for the
recovery of the suburbs in Italy. He also founded Building Green Future, a no-profit organization that promotes
sustainable development through green architecture and urban regeneration, in 2012.
Mario Cucinella has a solid background in architectural design and leads a team of architects and engineers
from various countries and , with particular attention to energy issues and environmental impact of buildings.
The firm is active in industrial design and technological research - through partnerships with universities and
research programs of the European Commission - to which it devotes a special internal unit.
Among the most significant projects: the SIEEB - Sino-Italian Ecological and Energy efficient Building Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; the new Civic Offices of Bologna; the CSET - Centre for Sustainable
Energy Technologies - The University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China; the new headquarters of 3M ITALY
Milan; the project of Regional Agency for the Environment ARPA in Ferrara; a Kuwait School, in Gaza,
developed in partnership with UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in
the Near East).
i
36
africandesignmagazine.com