Housed under a cantilevered roof surrounded by landscaped gardens, the library and cultural centre is the latest addition to the UAE city In Sharjah, UAE, the Foster + Partners-designed House of Wisdom – a library and cultural centre – has opened to the public. Located outside the city centre, between the steadily expanding Sharjah International Airport and the American University of Sharjah, the project seeks to be the catalyst for a new cultural quarter in the growing city. The two-storey building is defined by a large ‘floating roof’ cantilevering on all sides of a glazed rectilinear volume. The 15m-wide overhang shades the facades from the intense sun throughout most of the day; these facades also have fixed aluminium screens in a zigzag profile with differing densities, which filter the low sunlight in the evenings while providing rhythmic articulation to the exterior.