Surry Hills Library & Community Centre

The new Surry Hills Library and Community Centre was awarded via City of Sydney Council’s competitive processes. It provides a regional library, community centre and childcare centre for an urban community within the City of Sydney. Located on a prominent site in the heart of Surry Hills, the new facility provides specific services tailored to the need of the local community. The Library provides accommodation for a diverse borrowing collection of approximately 30,000 items, local history collections, some reference material and public access computers. The Community Centre comprises a function facility for 100 people and small community meeting rooms. The childcare centre provides accommodation for 26 children around the age of two years. The new centre replaces the existing library and neighbourhood centre building. It is located within a heritage conservation precinct characterised by its diversity of size and scale and predominance in Victorian style. A key objective for the project was to establish an Australian excellence standard of environmentally sustainable design. fjc’s design approach is generated from a number of key design principles: an understanding of the urban context; the functional brief and the environmentally sustainable program. The design sought to establish a contemporary sense of place (both building and open space) proving an open and inviting public facility with a strong connection to its setting.

We sought to create a certain monumentality, significance and dignity to this important public place, and the community values it embodies. The architecture is conceived with simple forms, each a response to the urban framework (proportion and scale) while symbiotic to the functional, pragmatic and environmental control requirements. While the architecture is inviting and transparent, it is also to a degree ‘silent’, such that it offers a contrasting environment to the ‘noise’ of its urban context. The new library utilises state of the art technologies for its total service delivery. RFID technology is used to manage and audit the collection, allow patron self check issue, systematise cataloguing and identity collection usage and demand. A high level of environmental performance and sustainability was a key objective of the design of the new facility. Although challenging within such a complex program and constricted site, a highly innovative and visually prominent feature of the design is the inclusion a biofiltration atrium, where air is drawn through a greenhouse type space which contains biomass air filtration vegetation before being reticulated through the building’s environmental control system. To achieve the environmental performance objectives for the project a holistic approach was applied to the design and construction processes where consideration was given to the range of environmental effects which arise from the construction and use of buildings and their infrastructure.

Read more in Insights: IFLA LBES Mid-Year Seminar – Building Excellence: Global and Indigenous Trends in Library Design.