OCTOBER 13 2018 LISTENER 17
once filled the ground floor of the old
library, pulled down in 2014 to make way
for the city’s under-construction conven-
tion centre, they’ll now occupy the three
upper floors of the new facility.
“It’s about drawing people up through
the building,” says Christchurch head of
libraries and information Carolyn Rob-
ertson, weaving her way between looped
cables, wrapped furniture and rows of
sharp white shelving, in advance of its
opening. “It allows for that diversity of
experiences.”
Although people might assume the
new library is simply a bigger version of
the old one, the reality, she says, is differ-
ent: “We’re completely reinventing it in
the process.”
The library was designed by New
Zealand company Architectus in partner-
ship with award-winning Danish library
design experts Schmidt Hammer Lassen
Architects (now part of global architecture
firm Perkins+Will).
As lead architect Carsten Auer writes,
“Libraries have moved on from being
repositories of books to being multimedia
hubs and social hubs. The modern library
is the ‘third space’ between home and
work. It’s a place where you can meet
people or be ‘alone together’, enjoying
sharing a social and recreational space
with others, even if you are not engaging
directly with them.”
The designers looked to new libraries
around the world, including those in
Birmingham, Nova Scotia, Salt Lake City
and the new Dokk1 in Aarhus, Denmark,
also designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassenand including a citizen service centre,
studios, a cafe, a theatre and terraced
stairs that convert into an amphitheatre.
These are the archetypes for the new
architect-designed hybrid library, a
multipurpose civic commons aimed at
fostering community living as much as
learning and literacy.
Although representing new global
trends in library design, Tūranga also has
a strong local flavour. The fin-like shapes
on the exterior cladding echo harakeke“Libraries have
moved on from being
repositories of books
to being multimedia
hubs and social hubs.”
(flax) leaves. The design, on the interior
ground-floor wall and sandblasted into
the exterior bluestone, was devised by
local Māori artists Morgan Mathews-
Hale and, in a welcome return to the
public space of the city, master carver
Riki Manuel.
On track for a Green Star sustain-
ability rating of 5 out of a potential
6, the building will also be braced for
future earthquakes. Its core is made
up of 26m-high precast concrete walls
clamped by damping devices designed
to dissipate the energy of seismic events
like structural shock absorbers.
Says Southbase Construction site
manager Andy Hayes, “If this place
is affected [by a quake], the town is
gone.”Christchurch’s new $92 million library, Tūranga,
designed by Architectus in partnership with
Denmark’s Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects.PAM CARMICHAEL