Surry Hills Library and community centre upgrade

These works have set new benchmarks in sustainable public buildings.

Project Status: Completed

All works are complete and facilities are open to the public.

City of Sydney

Library venues

Venue Coordinator - Libraries

What we’re doing

Surry Hills Library and community centre provides a diverse range of services to the communities of Surry Hills and surrounds.

The first Surry Hills Library and community facility built in 1956 was a small and modest building.

Since then, the communities of Surry Hills has continuously changed. Different cultural groups and business sectors have ebbed and flowed in the area.

The need for a new community facility was recognised in 2004. We viewed this as an opportunity to deliver a new facility that reached high-level sustainability and design standards. In 2005, architecture firm FJMT, headed by Richard Francis-Jones, was awarded the project.

Community consultation contributed to the design concepts. In 2007 the old community centre was demolished to make way for an innovative hybrid building containing a new library, community centre and childcare facility.

The building has a unique air quality system using natural filtering properties of plants. Air is naturally cooled under the building, reducing the need for artificial cooling by some 50%.

The process works like this:
- Air is drawn in at the top of the atrium
- The air passes through special plants acting as ‘passive’ filters
- Air then flows under the building where its temperature is conditioned by a thermal labyrinth, a series of high thermal-mass rock baskets
- From here, the filtered and cooled air flows throughout the different levels of the building.
Design features to achieve significant savings in energy use:
- High levels of natural lighting throughout the building and daylight controlled light fixtures
- Large louvre façade which moves and ‘tracks’ the sun to control internal glare and heat levels
- Natural grasses on the roof to reduce energy loss
- Movement controlled lighting for public and work spaces
- Solar roof panels to provide supplementary power to the building.
Building materials have been selected for their durability and sustainability:
- A post-tensioning structural system that reduces the quantity of concrete required for structural framing
- Use of alternative materials to PVC for plumbing and electrical services
- Finishes that contain low levels of products which harm the environment such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
- Timber products sourced from sustainable forests.