new opening
Francine Houben
building. The room is an original feature from the city’s Victorian library and its wooden panelling and glass cabinets have been moved in their entirety and restored. The Shakespeare Memorial Room used to hold the library’s famous Shakespeare collection, which is now housed in the environmentally-controlled Golden Box. Spanning two levels of the building, the Golden Box contains the city’s internationally-important archives. While the library’s precious collections are kept safe in this climatically controlled environment, many of the most important artefacts will be made accessible to the public for the first time online. The new Discovery Gallery will enable
select parts of the collection to go on display through a programme of exhibitions. There is also a Digital Gallery giving further opportunities to present the collections. Designed to achieve a BREEAM Excellent
rating, the library incorporates a number of energy-saving techniques. Although a
transparent building, it maintains energy efficiency through the careful selection of materials and the use of mass and shading in the design detail. Other environmentally- friendly features include low energy lighting, water conservation systems and a Combined Heat and Power Engine that harvests the heat normally lost in power production to provide heating. Two public garden terraces on the third
and seventh floors provide green space for visitors to unwind, socialise and learn. Planted with a great variety of species including fruit, vegetables and herbs, they will give local people an opportunity to learn more about food and healthy eating, and also aim to inspire the community to get involved with the library through gardening. The terraces, along with a brown roof covered in rubble from the library’s construction, will also bring environmental benefits through offsetting carbon emissions and attracting wildlife and local ecology.
Q - The library is hailed as a major cultural destination. How did you approach the design? Design is always about the past and the future. Every project we undertake has to fit and make sense of its surroundings and the country it is in. I know a lot about libraries, but I didn’t know anything about Birmingham, so I had to get an understanding of the city. Walking through the streets I could see that it was very incoherent in places with architecture dating from lots of different periods sitting next to each other. I wanted the library to bring some coherence to the city. And as a public building, it had to contribute to the public realm and Birmingham itself.
Q - You say this is a people’s palace. What do you mean? Many of the older libraries have been designed for intellectuals. But this is a public building and we wanted it to be accessible for everyone. No matter who you are, this is a building for you. I wanted to create that same sense of accessibility that you get at Festival Hall on London’s Southbank.
Q - What were the key challenges? We had a very tight timescale, but that just meant this was an extremely focused project. Failure was not an option. Looking back, I’d say the greatest challenge was bringing all the different elements together – architecture, landscaping, the urban realm and the sustainability concept – to create a symphony.
Q - How have you designed the building for change? We don’t know what will happen in the future, but we do know that all buildings, not only libraries, have to be able to respond to change to meet society’s needs. People say libraries are about books; they’re not. They are about people and the exchange of knowledge. In the future, there will probably be less books and more focus on digital technology, but that doesn’t matter. The Library of Birmingham is a knowledge hub with great spaces so people can meet and interact and consume knowledge in whatever format they want.
Q - Tell us about the green spaces. Incorporating gardens in the design was always important to me. Birmingham is surrounded by lovely green hills, but standing on the roof all you can see is
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leisuredab.co.uk
Image: Christian Richters
Image: Christian Richters
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