GREEN SQUARE

GREEN SQUARE

Completed for the City of Sydney’s Green Square Library and Plaza competition, this project proposed a library building that is neither finite nor pure – a physical manifestation of the infinite nature of the information housed within a library.

Green Square was formerly a brownfield site that is now undergoing significant development. The site defined by the competition was identified as urban open space, and TAUT choose to maintain it as a loose fit urban “field” – a plaza for multiple urban programs. The line between plaza and library is made so it can either be drawn or blurred.

While the building is divided into two floors – split between new media and old media – this distinction is both reinforced with the addition of specific supporting spaces, and blurred through level changes and the use of double-heighted spaces. The design allows the collection to swell and contract, and the lines between areas are intentionally ambiguous to allow freedom and flexibility. The building’s continuous wrapping creates an internal street punctuated by landmarks that define its spatial thresholds. The library’s collection is held “in the screen” forming a container; the interior encourages multiple modes of engagement; from a traditional browsing and scholarly focus through to symposiums, events and other casual uses enabled by the Wi-Fi cloud.

The plaza is folded up into a series of urban “courtyards” stacked within the library. A path through the site is signified by a number of steel cells – the cells can be used in a number of ways: as permanent planters, relocatable planters or as shallow reflection pools. The cells also provide a nursery for indigenous plants that can be used in both the public domain and on the private balconies of neighbouring apartment buildings. Some endangered local grasses require fire for propagation, and the plaza’s design incorporates and celebrates this natural cycle. A suspended grid of programmable lights marks the future arrival of light rail to the plaza, and the library’s soffit presents opportunities to collaborate with local artists on additional lighting installations.