HB Williams Memorial Library

Public

Architect: Chow Hill Architects

Location: Gisborne

Completion Date: 2018

The HB Williams Library is one of Gisborne District Council’s most used facilities, with up to 5,000 visitors a week. It provides a vibrant learning hub and home for the local community, strongly connected to its local context in the centre of Gisborne. The land and buildings for the library were gifted by the Williams family in memory of Heathcote Beetham Williams (H.B.) Thus the H.B. Williams Memorial Library.

Designed by Colin Pilbrow in 1967, the iconic modernist concrete aesthetic of the 1960s building has been renovated and extended to provide a contemporary community learning environment, providing a future-fit asset for the Council

The project involved the extension and renovation of the original library to create a contemporary knowledge hub with a combined floor area of over 2000m². The extension provides 50 per cent more floor space and greater flexibility to offer additional community services.  

Cultural narratives, local history and manaakitanga underpin the design of the library renovation and extension, resulting in a contemporary knowledge hub for the Tairāwhiti community. The existing building is a classic example of post-modernist architecture.

eCubed’s role was as the environmental, mechanical, electrical and hydraulic engineer working within the existing fabric of the library and stitching it together with the new extension to form a modern, sustainable and aesthetic whole. We maintained and enhanced the significant existing environmental features of the building. This included reinstating the original natural ventilation strategy for the building, updated to include automatic control of the replacement windows in a mixed mode arrangement with new centralised heat pump air conditioning. The strategy was refined by thermal modelling to optimise the shading and thermal performance of the building.

The feature illuminated ceiling was also retained, restored and modernised with other features such as the stained-glass window being carefully maintained and backlit at night. New exterior lighting also highlights the significant external artworks at night

Routing new and modern building services including power, data, security, lighting HVAC, water and drainage sympathetically within the existing building fabric of the 1960’s library proved to be a significant design challenge for the project. This involved stripping out existing services that had been added piecemeal over the life of the building and adding back new services that were integrated with the existing building and the new extension, all while the existing Library was partially in operation.

“Never demolish, never remove or replace, always add, transform and reuse!”