A library reaching for the future
There’s something really special next to Helsinki’s central station: A building called Oodi, which describes itself as “an innovative library reaching for the future”. Let’s go on a tour!
The first thing I noticed was this giant screen, which explains that idle hanging out is not only allowed, but encouraged! <3
The bottom floor has a big area full of chess and go boards, and there were in fact a couple of people using them!
There’s a restaurant, and a built-in cinema, which shows classic movies for little money.
The best staircase ever leads us to the second floor:
There we find: professional digital working stations, with high-quality screens!
There’s a big number of recording studios and sound production studios, all of which you can rent!
Oh, and while we’re at it, why don’t we rent some instruments, as well? There’s full-time staff maintaining them.
There’s many small and big group rooms which you can rent, many of them in active use! I see group meetings, students working, and podcast interviews being recorded!
Wanna rent a kitchen and cook with your friends? Sure, you can do that here!
You can also rent game rooms with modern video game consoles and VR gear, along with the games to play in them!
There’s a makerspace: It has several 3D printers, multiple laser cutters, and engravers. And staff which can help you learn how to use them.
There’s also: Sewing machines! Shirt presses! Cutting plotters!
At this point, you might ask: “Ok, but where are the books?” Let’s go up to the third floor!
Here they are! Lots and lots of them, lined up in shelves that don’t go above eye height most people, so it’s easy to find other people! During the day, daylight comes in through organically-shaped holes in the ceiling.
There’s an integrated cafe. Of course you can read books while drinking your coffee!
At one end, there’s a children’s space, with lots of cleverly integrated ramps, toys, and a wonderully fluffy room! And a parking area for kid’s strollers.
And there’s space for sitting and working everywhere (with power outlets)! You can sit, lie down, or chill out however you want!
There’s robots moving books from and to the storage in the basement! 🤖
So yeah, I really love it here! I can barely believe a place like this exists, and I hope there’ll be many more like it in the future! <3
Oh I forgot – you can do a virtual online tour through Oodi yourself! Try making it through the different levels, all the way to the top!
This post has been adapted from this Mastodon thread.
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