The Wallsend District Library building is designed to act as a seed or focus for the growth of a sustainable community for Wallsend. It provides exhibition, meeting, library and childcare facilities and links them to the neighbouring Wallsend Plaza Shopping Centre across the street. Since the new Library opened in 2006 the building has created a large amount of public and industry interest. It also won all major awards for Design, Excellence, Civic Design and Sustainable Design at the Hunter Civic Design Awards.
The design was evolved to create an open, light and light filled internal space, that provided a range of exciting locations for various facilities, and uses, that could be accessed individually as separate addresses within a single simple structure. The form of the building is created from two curved pavillions that are linked by a central linear atrium. The curves of the building flow from its curved sheet frontage Each pavillion has a ‘skillion roof’ sloping down towards two large 1.5m high ‘v shaped’ curved steel box gutters that define the central linear spine of the building.
The building’s site runs north/south along the curved sheet frontage; the Wallsend Plaza located behind a large open carpark occupies the opposite frontage. A central walkway ‘spears out’ from the retail centre towards the new Library.
client
Newcastle city council
size
1,750m2
cost
$7.5m
completed
2006
team
Project Director
Project Architect
Architect
Ian Brewster
Rus Manaf
Alisa Pigram
Date
2007
