A library that belongs to 10–15-year-olds.
A library gives 10–15-year-olds a place designed to feel like their own, not a children’s corner in an adult institution.
NO NorwayIn practice. An operating Deichman library in Oslo for visitors aged 10–15, supported by adult staff.
What to keep in view
Adult staff are present: this is not an unsupervised library. Documented design and operation do not prove a causal literacy or crime-reduction effect.
The visitor policy is part of the design
Biblo Tøyen is Deichman’s library for 10–15-year-olds in Oslo. Adult staff support a space organised around young visitors, with opportunities to read, make things and spend time together.
An age-specific visitor policy, participatory design and spaces for making, reading and social activity reshape how young people enter and use a library.
Permission to make the place your own
Our reading: the unusual decision is institutional as much as architectural: young people are the main audience rather than a small group accommodated within an adult space. That can change the permission a visitor feels to participate. A comparable service should examine who sets the rules and who feels ownership, while measuring learning or inclusion separately.
For civic services: who would use the institution differently if its social rules and spaces were designed around them?
Read next.
From using technology to making with it.
Both give young people a place to act, make and return. Staffing and social rules matter alongside the equipment and interior.
Industrial surplus becomes a learning resource.
Both create a setting for open-ended exploration. One reorganises the library around an age group; the other curates materials for educators and learners.