Designing for Discovery: Reflections from Busan on Libraries, Place and Public Purpose

During my time in Busan for the IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2026, I had the opportunity to step beyond the Congress programme and experience three very different libraries at first hand: Busan Gangseo Miracle Library, Hadan Library and the National Assembly Busan Library.

International library visits are always valuable because they allow us to see familiar challenges through a different lens. The context in South Korea is, of course, very different from the UK, but the fundamental questions are remarkably similar. What do people need from libraries now? How should our buildings respond? How do we create spaces that children and families genuinely want to inhabit? And how do libraries balance books and reading with technology, creativity, culture, democracy and community life?

What struck me most in Busan was not any single piece of technology or architectural feature. It was the confidence with which these libraries expressed their purpose. Each, in its own way, demonstrated that the building is not simply the container for a library service. The building is part of the service.

Busan Gangseo Miracle Library perhaps provided the clearest expression of this philosophy.  Part of Korea's wider Miracle Library movement, the library places children, families and reading at the centre of both its service and its physical design. But this is not simply a children's section within a conventional public library. The whole environment invites exploration.  There are wooden floors, tiered book stacks, smaller spaces to discover and places where children can sit, climb, read, play and spend time. The scale and character of the building change as you move through it. It feels designed from a child's perspective rather than an adult interpretation of what children might need.

One of its most memorable features is a centuries-old hackberry tree, preserved and incorporated into the development of the site. Visible from within the library, it creates a beautiful connection between the building, nature and the history of the place.

That relationship with place stayed with me.  We often discuss library design in terms of functionality: shelving, accessibility, meeting rooms, technology, study space and circulation. All are essential. But Gangseo Miracle Library demonstrates something less easily measured: the ability of a building to create wonder.  That matters, particularly for children.
If we want children to develop a lifelong relationship with books and reading, their first experiences of libraries should be joyful ones. Spaces can give children permission to explore, to be curious and to develop a sense that the library belongs to them.

The lesson from Gangseo is therefore not that UK should replicate its architecture. It is that we should continue to ask whether we are designing children's library spaces around the behaviours and experiences we want to encourage.

At Hadan Library, the emphasis shifted towards technology, creativity and experience.  Opened in 2024 as part of a wider community complex, Hadan combines traditional library collections with digital and experiential spaces. Alongside children's and general collections are facilities including a Media Commons, Digital Experience Room, large-scale media installations and immersive approaches to storytelling and play.  The technology does not appear to be there to demonstrate that the library is modern. It is there because digital experiences are now part of how people learn, create and encounter information.  This distinction is important.  In the UK conversations about digital provision in libraries can understandably focus on essential infrastructure: public PCs, Wi-Fi, printing, connectivity and access to online services. These remain fundamental, particularly when digital exclusion continues to affect so many people.

But Hadan encourages us to think further ahead.  What might equitable access to emerging technology look like through a public library network? Where will children encounter immersive technologies, AI, digital creativity or new forms of storytelling if those opportunities are unavailable at home?

Libraries have historically democratised access to knowledge. Increasingly, they also have a role in democratising access to technology, digital confidence and digital creativity.  A modern digital library should not simply help people participate in the digital world as it exists today. It should help communities participate confidently in the world that is emerging.

The National Assembly Busan Library offered a very different experience again.  Opened in 2022, it is the first regional branch of Korea's National Assembly Library and combines specialist parliamentary and legislative functions with a significant public-facing role.  That combination fascinated me.  The building brings together parliamentary and legal collections, research and preservation alongside public collections, children's services, exhibitions, education, cultural programmes and digital resources. In doing so, it makes a powerful statement about the relationship between knowledge and democracy.

We sometimes describe libraries as community infrastructure, cultural infrastructure, educational infrastructure or increasingly preventative infrastructure. The National Assembly Busan Library was a reminder that libraries are also part of our democratic infrastructure.  That feels increasingly important. In a world of misinformation, fragmented media, AI-generated content and declining trust in institutions, access to reliable information is not an abstract library principle. It is fundamental to people's ability to participate in society.

Libraries provide something increasingly rare: trusted public spaces where people can encounter knowledge without an expectation that they buy something, subscribe to something or surrender their personal data in return.

The architecture reinforces that message. The scale and ambition of the building communicate that knowledge, public access and democratic participation are worthy of significant civic investment.

Across all three libraries, I kept returning to the relationship between architecture and purpose. In Gangseo, design encourages children to explore.  In Hadan, it enables people to experiment and create.  In the National Assembly Busan Library, it communicates the civic importance of knowledge.

Different buildings, different audiences and different functions – but in each case the physical environment reinforces what the library is trying to achieve.  This connects strongly with the reflections I brought home from Athens earlier this year. There I wrote that belonging is never accidental; it is designed.

Good library design does not begin with the building. It begins with the experience we want people to have within it. That might be a child discovering the pleasure of choosing their own book. It might be someone encountering new technology for the first time. It might be a student looking for somewhere to study, an older person seeking connection, a family spending time together, or a citizen trying to navigate increasingly complex information.

The most successful library buildings make those experiences feel natural.  I left Busan thinking less about individual buildings and more about intent. None of the three libraries felt accidental. Their spaces, collections, technology and services told a coherent story about who they were for and what they wanted to enable.  Gangseo Miracle Library told children that reading and discovery belonged to them.  Hadan Library told communities that new technology and creativity should be accessible to everyone.  The National Assembly Busan Library told citizens that knowledge and democracy deserve visible, ambitious public institutions.

Libraries can be places of reading, creativity, digital participation, democracy, connection and discovery. The challenge for all of us involved in shaping their future is to ensure that our buildings, services and investment reflect that ambition.