Surry Hills Library and Community Centre by FJMT, Australia

August 22, 2009 Category: Cultural, Public Buildings

Located in Surry Hills, Australia, the Surry Hills Library and Community Centre was designed by FJMT, Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp sets a new standard for sustainability measures in public buildings. This is a new type of ‘hybrid’ public building for Sydney, integrating into one community-scaled facility, a public library / resource centre, flexible and specialist community space and childcare. The design seeks to create an open and inviting community facility with strong connection to its setting, and an expression of community values of equity, transparency and sustainability. It is a welcoming community place for all ages and social groups providing facilities that embody the values of equity of access to information and resources that are essential to build communities. A key objective for the project is to establish a new Australian excellence standard of environmentally sustainable design in civic buildings.

The building incorporates many innovations in sustainable design, but also seeks to integrate these into the architecture and explore the expressive potential of such systems. This is most evident in the emblematic ‘environmental-atrium’ that rises in a prismatic spire-like form to clearly identify the new building and public place. The ‘environmental-atrium’ composed of a series of crystal-like, triangular, tampering airshafts that draw-in, clean and passively cool out-side air. Experimental use of plant-life for bio-filtration of pollutants is integrated in the form of gardens of specially selected plants within these glass enclosures.

Natural daylight is filtered through these glass shafts and gardens deep into the interiors. The array of environmental initiatives intrinsic to the design, also include thermal labyrinth for passive filtering and tempering of the air, solar tracking timber louvre systems, automated fabric shading, mixed mode ventilation, extensive photovoltaic array, geothermal cooling bores, green roof, rainwater collection and recycling, sustainable material selection. Another projects by Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp

Surry Hills Library and Community Centre, natural daylight to interior and plant, glass facade