Challenge

As part of the Gilgandra Activation Plan, Council purchased the old Target Country building with the intent to create and develop a new Gilgandra Library and Community Hub that will replace the existing local library. The Gilgandra Shire Library was established in 1923 and had become inadequate to support the growing services and needs of existing and future uses. 
The new location for a library and community hub at the centre of the town’s heritage main street required design strategies that would not only strengthen its importance physically but also culturally within the community.

Response

We designed the library as a valuable community asset that will accommodate an ambitious programme including youth robotics competitions, music recording, business incubator spaces, story time, homework club, support for job seekers, catered functions, music performances and anything else the local energetic librarians can dream up. 
We identified the opportunity to transform the adjacent under-utilised plaza, form a new entry to the building, and create an outdoor living room for the town. The plaza provides a connection from the main street through to the Castlereagh river. It incorporates a stage pavilion for events and picnics, a lawn for lazy afternoons, native planting to manage overland flows and a grove of trees which frame the main entry to the library. 

The project has been designed to be flood resilient, structurally engineered to withstand forces, and programmatically locating expensive equipment above the flood line. The result is a building designed to last for the next hundred years, cultivate learning and community engagement, and to flexibly support the future needs of Gilgandra