As you approach and enter the Peckham library you become immediately aware of the many different materials used. Stone, steel, concrete, glass, iron and plastic all clah violently with each other as you make your way up the staircase, one hand one the aluminium railing and your face turned orange by the plastic coating on the north face facade windows.
The staircase is where the most diverse materials are displayed, done in a very naked style as if the architect wished to show all the many materials and structures that make up the building. Unlike the very uniform facade of patinated coppar, the staircase itself is concrete with glass ornaments and supported by giant steel beams visible above your head. Separating the stairs is a metal net, a miniature version of the same kind as found on the outside .
The L-shaped building is covered in copper on all surfaces exposed to weather except the nortern side, while the inside of the L is covered in a metal net that from a distance resembles sheets of canvas hanging from the ceiling and wall. The net acts both as ornament and protection agains vandalism.
As you enter the library, the naked materials of the staircase are replaced by the opposite. A warm red rug greets the visitor when you step onto the third floor and stretches across the library floor. The walls are painted a creamy white, with light seeping in around the edges of the ceiling through a gap between the ceiling and the wall.
The three large blobs that seem to inhabit the library as giant insects are clad in light-coloured wooden squares that have been stapled onto them, giving it a look of being sewn together. One can easily associate them to big wooden huts or ancient inuit canoes. They reinforce the homely atmosphere created by the rug and the many books that together serves to dampen any noise that might be made.
Inside these blobs, or pods as the architects call them, are quiet areas, a meeting room, and a childrens playroom. The quiet area is situated directly beneath the domed skylight, and as you ascend the spiral staircase leading into to it, light becomes another material separating the area from the rest of the library.
Though it retains the red rug and white walls, as well as he same chairs and tables as below, the way you are introduced to a new quality of light lets you know that you are now entering a very different space. The tables have been arranged around the edges of the pod, making the person who enters from the stairs feel clumsy and alien until he or she sits down at one of the tables and becomes a part of the circle of people reading quietly there.
The contrast between the inside and outside of the library section is a central theme throughout the building. Inside the library is all soft materials that invites you to relax and stay a while. Outside the library, as in the elevator and bathrooms for example, everything is naked metal and rubber, pushing you to move on a quickly as possible. On the forth floor, the bathrooms are bathed in light tinted by the coloured plastic sheeting on the north face facade, giving the room an entirely artificial light quality.
The building does a very good job of ushering you to the fourth floor and to the library where you are told by the materials to stay and read or enjoy in some other activity available there.
As you enter the building you’ve left a busy street, walked across a large open square into the cover of the buildings top floors and into a building very much unlike a public library. Or rather, ur expectations of what a public library may be. As you walk up the stairs or ascend in the elevator you are treated to a normal office-like space, albeit one where the building materials are clearly displayed. But when you enter the library you cross a threshold into a very different kind of space from the first few floos. 
In the library, the line between private and public become blurred. Peckham library doesn’t focus on giant open spaces furnitured by long rows of table for quiet study, instead there are comfortable chairs placed in clusters throughout the space, inviting you to sit down and become invested in a book. 
The raised floors in the reading areas are covered with warm red carpet and those in the lobby are stone paneled. The main staircase consists of, "pre-cast concrete treads and landings supported on steel stringers; glass lenses were cast into the concrete to maximise light penetration." The north and south elevations of the vertical block are covered with floor-to-ceiling vivid glass panels. These glass panels are tied to the structure with, "structural silicone glazed to an aluminium stick system curtain wall frame."
The library has attracted the expected bit of attention from vandals. Repairing their efforts is made all the more difficult by the building's use of specially made pre-fabricated parts. Six of the storey-high, colored glass panels were completely shattered. Since the glass manufacturers no longer produced the specific panels, they had to be ordered sourced in France. The tinted film was supplied by the architect. With repair costs soaring to 48,000 pounds, the panels remained broken for several months. The architect then decided to protect the building with a metal mesh curtain. This sturdy metal piece was woven specifically for this project from stainless steel rods and cables, "This was draped and tensioned over stainless steel bracketry and support tubes."
From the exterior, the windows and skylights appear randomly placed. But once inside the reading space, you can see the natural lighting was really calculated. Light falls into the space from around the pods and around the perimeter of the dropped ceiling. What a novelty to read and work by natural light! 
As you approach and enter the Peckham library you become immediately aware of the many different materials used. Stone, steel, concrete, glass, iron and plastic all clah violently with each other as you make your way up the staircase, one hand one the aluminium railing and your face turned orange by the plastic coating on the north face facade windows.
The contrast between the inside and outside of the library section is a central theme throughout the building. Inside the library is all soft materials that invites you to relax and stay a while. Outside the library, as in the elevator and bathrooms for example, everything is naked metal and rubber, pushing you to move on a quickly as possible. 
The structure is designed to allow for maximum air circulation to reduce heating and cooling costs. The cheeky beret cap on the roof cools and shades the ventilation shaft. The ceiling contains cut-outs and niches to make the space airy and light.
