RE-DESIGN OF WELLINGTON CENTRAL LIBRARY 04

The facade of the building unifies the scheme by masking it with a uniform skin, but as we dig deeper into its interior, the project reveals a complex arrangement of differentiated objects contained within its mass. The project is organized by combining distinct building types, overlapping their forms to promote a sense of diffusion between programs. The complex operates less as a static planning device and more as an ecology, where the threshold between architecture and infrastructure, interior and exterior, part and whole becomes obscured. The project rejects the treatment of the whole as either a smooth continuum or a discrete collection. It refrains from slicing a mass into neat compartments where functions obediently reside within a single roof or dividing the complex into an aggregation of discrete buildings. Rather, the Wellington Central Library aims to invigorate the site’s urban potential by interrogating the boundaries of each function, allowing their jurisdictions to permeate one another. Rather than homogenizing the program to produce an explicit whole, the project celebrates difference and contradiction to produce unanticipated effects of continuity and fragmentation through causality.

The Library is entangled with the City to Sea Bridge, slithering through the landscape to shape the different elements that build up its mass. The new Library has paid tribute to the Māori culture in their portrayal of the scattered Nikau Palms around the building, the remains of the Nikau Palms aim to revisit the roots of the land in which Wellington City stands on, as well as

Design Tutor: Daniel K. Brown/ Daniele Abreu E Lima

Project Stream: Conceptual Architecture Stream TZ its distinct qualities of a strong column like structure and ringed detailing of the trunk. The Wellington Central Library’s concentric typology harbors a collection of sculpted circulation objects whose qualities provide a unique sense of character and posture – a cross bridge that intersects a study room, an exterior staircase that breaks up the building’s skin, a spiralling bookcase that frames a central atrium. These three circulation objects connect the Wellington Central library to the City to Sea Bridge that shapes Waterfront, forming a promenade that leads the public from the site’s iconic landmark towards a public terrace atop the library. The stepped roofscape acts as a performance space that gazes back at the centre of Wellington and the Waterfront, setting up a dialogue between the architectural objects that shape Victoria Street.