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Upper Riccarton Community and School Library
Douglass-Truth Branch of The Seattle Public Library
Hercules Public Library
Minneapolis Central Library
New York Public Library - Mulberry Street Branch
Nishimachi International School, Yashiro Media Center
San Mateo Public Library
Shunde Library
Whitby Public Library & Civic Square
Idea Store WhitechapelUpper Riccarton Community and School Library
A new facility integrates a new community library with a local high school's existing collection and IT resources.
The Upper Riccarton Community and School Library draws on Australian precedents for joint-use facilities and proposes a dynamic new structure in which school and community can interact. The new library incorporates outdoor reading areas, a dedicated café, a children’s library, community meeting rooms and comprehensive multi-media learning and research tools. Four shared teaching suites provide research and tuition opportunities for students and allow school computer resources to be available to community groups after hours.
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A linear ‘one box’ volume, the steel-framed glazed collection enclosure is book-ended by a ramped entry porch (where school and public interact before moving into the building) at the south and an outdoor reading room to the north. A transverse service component, clad in timber paneling, slides east-to-west across the main space and encloses back-of-house workrooms, staff facilities and the community meeting room. The cruciform plan is extended by four teaching spaces adjoining its eastern edge, which looks out to a new quadrangle and the existing music school beyond.
The design represents a considered response to the Local Authority’s environmental policies and includes a number of sustainable design strategies, which have been deliberately exposed for educational purposes. The new library enclosure is passively ventilated, with motorized operable windows at high and low levels to generate cross ventilation with high-level extraction over the summer months. Passive ventilation is augmented by roof-mounted extract fans at times of peak temperature. Full-height motorized vertical louvers (automatically tracking with the sun) screen east and west-facing glazing. A raised floor slab incorporates a highly efficient pump-driven waterborne heating/cooling matrix, which responds to seasonal temperature requirements. Solar water heating, low energy lighting, double glazing, higher-than-code insulation levels and strategically placed thermal mass complete the environmental design strategy.
Stormwater collected from the building’s roof is stored in an in-ground tank for reuse in the toilets and the irrigation system. Low water-use plumbing fittings have been specified to further reduce the building’s annual water consumption. Runoff from asphalt parking lots, together with excess roof water, is distributed to a rain garden and drainage swales to minimize impact on local stormwater infrastructure.
Formal name of building: Upper Riccarton Community and School Library
Location: Christchurch, NZ.
Completion Date: 23 January 2006
Gross square footage: 1600 sq.m (17,200 sq.ft)
Total project cost: $4,500,000 NZD
Owner: Christchurch City Libraries / Riccarton High School
Architect:
Warren and Mahoney Limited
131 Victoria Street
PO Box 25086
Christchurch
New Zealand
T: +64 3 961 5926
F: +64 3 961 5935
www.warrenandmahoney.com
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