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The University of Thessalonica has dug in to create an underground library that gives the comfort of the cave, while being a powerful academic machine.
The main campus of the Aristotle University of Thessalonica was started in the 1950s and, like many of its contemporaries, it is an ordered structure of cleanly designed concrete buildings permeated by large amounts of greenery. On the whole, it has stood up well, and (with some exceptions) additions have conformed to the intentions of the master plan. But the university continues to grow, and it is running out of sites.
So when the library needed to expand, it was decided to put the extension underground. The approach is part of an overall university strategy, by which new work will largely be underground in a series of fragments intended to restore the essentially urban character of the campus. The new part of the library is apparently entirely separate from the original 1960 building by Papaioannou & Fines which stands alone like a pavilion in a park. The landscape...