The South Library is slated for repair or rebuild, and yet it is only 20 years old.  Why is this, what is happening and what can the river possibly have to do with it all?

The South Library, which includes the Beckenham Service Centre and Novel Cafe, is a very popular public building, opened to much fanfare and accolades for its Warren & Mahoney design features in 2003.  The design, incorporating building materials with recycled content, low water-use plumbing fittings, use of solar energy, and maximum use made of natural light, received the supreme award for architecture at the 2004 NZIA awards.  It was also the first council facility in the city to include a cafe, computer room and service centre under one roof. It now needs to be repaired or rebuilt, just 20 years on. So what went wrong?

What went wrong The 2010 Christchurch earthquake sequence is the obvious answer.  It caused differential settling of the ground beneath the building causing the slab to finish 90mm lower at one end and disruption to a number of services.  The earthquakes also resulted in the revision of New Zealand building standards such that a building built to 100% of the standards in 2003 would only be rated at 60% of today’s new building standards.  Currently, the South Library, having been speedily and temporarily reinforced in 2012, meets just 34% of the new building standards; a 1% lower rating would require its closure as an earthquake-prone building.  

So, there were obviously a few weaknesses in the original design helping to lower the building’s current rating.  In addition, some of the features such as the moat and very low windows have not worked as well as expected in real life; for example, children liked dropping books into the moat through the windows!  The moat was also not always as odour-free as might have been hoped, and then the moat water seeped away due to earthquake-induced cracks.

To rebuild or repair  To achieve 100% of the new building code, all but a few posts and roof elements of the current building will need to be removed and replaced.  It would actually be slower and more expensive to leave these few remaining elements in place while rebuilding underneath and around them.  In addition, the breaking up and removal of the present slab would vastly increase the carbon footprint of the new building; the current thinking is to leave the current slab in place as “clean fill” and to build a new, level slab on top of it which would be strong enough to remain rigid in the face of further ground level changes and which could be re-levelled if necessary following a future earthquake event.  Although there is still much investigation and design work to be completed before reliable figures can be ascertained, it seems as if the estimated cost of repair will exceed the estimated cost of a rebuild, given the reuse of some of the elements, fittings and equipment.

What has the river got to do with it?  You would think that being sited next to the river, the South Library would demonstrably address the adjacent flow of water in both its design and outlook.  It does not.   In fact, it almost turns its back to the river.  

If the building is to be rebuilt, the Ōpāwaho Heathcote River Network is adamant that the new design should incorporate the presence of the river; we made this point first in our submissions to the CCC draft 2022 Annual Plan.  A new library should address the river and the space between it and the new building as an integrated whole.  The river should influence the design brief in every possible manner and all avenues need to be explored to ensure that the educational opportunity of an adjacent river is exploited visually and physically.  Easy access to the ecologically interesting and fast-flowing stretch of the river that curls around the library should be dovetailed into the treatment of the landscape into which the library fits. Even informational panels explaining the issues that the river faces as it passes through the city should be incorporated into the rebuild.

At the public meeting that the CCC held on Monday, 27 June, there was enthusiastic reception for the river being celebrated by any rebuilt library, both from the CCC staff leading the meeting and by the residents present.  Let us hope that it happens.  We shall be pushing for it at every opportunity.