Winner World's Best Library

Green Square Library and Plaza is an urban living room located at the heart of Australia’s largest urban renewal area and includes a 3,000 sqm library and an 8,000sqm plaza. The commission was won through an anonymous global design competition with the scheme unanimously selected by the jury, which included Pritzker Prize winner Glenn Murcutt.

The competition brief called for two distinct components — a public plaza and a library. Our unique design response fuses these elements together by placing the library largely underground and maximising the public open space at ground level. This arrangement allows the community to gather outdoors and enjoy the pleasant Sydney climate, whilst providing a light-filled, community haven below with 42 large skylights delivering light to the space below and where visitors can retreat from the noise of the city.

Key volumes protrude from the underground library puncturing the public realm at plaza level bringing light, air and access to the space below. The legible geometries of a triangle, circle, square and trapezium are placed strategically as a field of social instruments within the plaza. The design is intentionally informal and programmatically sustainable, providing a shared territory for multiple uses — suitable for the evolving role of the library and an expanding population. The building includes brightly coloured meeting rooms, a computer lab, a music room for practice and performance, double height reading room, children’s area and outdoor amphitheatre for events.

The library and plaza achieve a 5-star rating from the Green Building Council of Australia. Its sustainability features include a central wastewater system and a low energy displacement ventilation system within the library bookshelves. In response to its location within the water table, the underground library utilises a 3 layer waterproofing system.

Green Square Town Centre will become home to 60,000 people over the next 15 years. Green Square Library and Plaza responds to this challenge — a bold and generous space that will be actively shaped and remade by an evolving community. A space that works day and night. This design makes space and preserves the plaza for community expression.