The British Library is the biggest library in the world, amassing more than 170 million items. Its printed collection occupies over 750 kilometres of shelving. The British Library is also a legal deposit library which means that a copy of every book published in the UK or Ireland has to be stored there. Every hour 20 books are published in the UK alone. Adding to this number are books that are acquired from other countries, meaning that the library has to add more than 8km of shelving every year. As The British Library decided to not expand its spaces dedicated to the book storage at its St Pancras site, it has moved almost half of its collection elsewhere. In 2023 The British Library is going to celebrate its 50th anniversary; this project proposes to create an outpost for the library that will fulfil the requirements of the legal deposit for the 50 years to come.

'British Library North' investigates the relationship between ever-expanding knowledge and the physical experience of accessing it. Looking for the role of the library in the 21st century, the scheme mixes analog and digital, extraordinary and everyday, monumental and intimate, past and future within a single building.