Surry Hills Library - FJMT

The Surry Hills Library, designed by architects FJMT, is a brilliant example of how a community centre can use high performance technologies to improve the environmental sustainability of the project, and limit its environmental footprint. 

The hybrid public building combines a library, community building, childcare facility, and council offices into a single place, maximising natural light access into the building with a large glazed facade to the south. Sustainably sourced timber has been used throughout the construction, most prominant in the vertical louvers, which move according to the time of day to control the amount of light entering the interior. 

The flat roof is used for a large bank of solar panels, helping to offset the energy usage of the building, and feeding back into the local energy grid when producing surpluss power. The roof is also used to collect rainwater, which is then stored in an underground tank, which is used to water the grassed greenspace adjacent, and also to flush the toilets within the building. 

Perhaps the most interesting high performance system is the use of a geothermal labyrinth and bio-filter to condition the air intake for the building. The system works by first drawing air in from the outside, then funneled through an underground labyrinth, which contains a geothermal heat exchanger. This mediates the temperature of the air, passively heating/cooling using the ambient ground temperature. Finally, this air is then pushed through an enclosed bio-filter - a series of plants used to increase the oxygen content of the air, before being distributed throughout the building. 

While the use of a geothermal heat exchange is well documented as a successful and viable strategy, the use of a bio-filter has been challenged. The two main points of criticism are that the air flow is too fast for any meaningful change in oxygen content levels, and secondly that there are not enough trees in the bio-filter for any significant oxygenation effect to take place. 

In conclusion, Surry Hills Library is still a great example of a sustainably designed building, which has combined a number of proven ESD strategies, while also experimenting with new ways to integrate them together, such as the use of the bio-filter. It is this combination of ESD strategies that is most significant, with FJMT considering the different building systems holistically, rather than in isolation.