READING BETWEEN THE LINES

Cardiff’s newbuild city library by BDP, firmly set in the retail world, may be a design and build project but its imaginative, sustainable and principled design proves the commercial sector can produce buildings of integrity too

Words Hugh Pearman | Photos David Barbour and Sanna Fisher-Payne

WE KNOW WHAT the inside of a lending library should look like, more or less, but what about the outside?  Is there an accepted present-day architectural language which speaks of the storage and lending of books?  If so, to what extent is this language different from that of civic buildings in general?

It’s quite different, in fact, because today’s library is as likely to be part of a shopping complex as civic offices. Think of Hopkins’ ‘Forum’ in Norwich, set above a retail court, or David Adjaye’s first East End Library, converted from an existing mall.  In fact stand-alone new public library buildings, such as Will Alsop’s Stirling Prize-winning Peckham example, or Ryder’s just-completed Newcastle City Library, are comparatively rare: as a breed this building type can suffer from Appendage Syndrome, probably because, traditionally, they have tended to be civic afterthoughts. Indeed, until philanthropist William Carnegie stumped up the cash to build 660 public libraries across the UK in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it did not really exist as a building type at all. 

BDP’s new City of Cardiff Library is no appendage, but a freestanding building, with retail leanings. True, public libraries have much in common with retail anyway, given that they are places where goods change hands. There are other connections: there was a time, for instance, when Boots the Chemist also ran a flourishing subscription-based book-lending section. Here however, about two thirds of the double-height ground level of the new library is given over to actual retail in the form of restaurants.  And for a good reason: this is Cardiff’s restaurant quarter, and it is hard by the huge St David’s 2 shopping development – by other architects, but the same joint-venture developer. Street level, then, continues the retail theme but the generous entrance to the library takes pride of place on the axis of a street called The Hayes that leads down to it.

This is a roughly rhomboidal island building at the point where the street forks.  Its plan is an overlapping set of geometries generated by the street pattern: the entrance lobby, with automated book drop-off, a ‘greatest hits’ sample book selection and a Citizens Advice Bureau to the rear, is aligned with one street; while the main public floorplates of the building – and its atrium slot – follow the other.  This superimposition of geometries continues upwards through the buildings, each floor having a slightly different layout and function. And the building is Janus-faced in another respect. While much of it is clad in a glazed system of tall narrow units in three shades of pale blue, complete with areas of sun-shading louvres, a large proportion – on its less public elevations – is clad in brass- finished panels to slightly wider dimensions.

This is to do partly with fire requirements, and partly orientation – the brass cladding, chosen because it weathers to a dull patina without the greening associated with copper – is on the southern side where solar gain would have been a problem. It is also less in the public gaze, though very noticeable from the main railway line to the south.  But there are also visual metaphors to consider. The tall narrow proportions of the building’s cladding are of course a reference to shelves of books.  The glazed, coloured side is more pop and paperback-like: the brassbound side, as it weathers to a dull brown, reminiscent of fat old leather volumes.  There is, however, another metaphor: the course of a long-vanished canal, part of Cardiff’s industrial past, which used to run through here.  Blue refers to water: the brass to the metal foundries that used to operate in the vicinity. You might not immediately grasp this reference, but it’s one of those devices that architects use to justify what might otherwise seem to be random material and colour choices. 

The shape of the building is generated simply enough by the site boundary and the area of accommodation needed. The tilting hat of the ‘green’ roof was a product of the need for a higher plant-room level on only one side of the building.  This tilt of the roof, combined with the skewed geometry of the building as a whole, generates a great deal of visual dynamism inside, along with interesting nooks and corners.  This creates a variety of environments for readers, particularly on the top floor.

As the new main library for the Welsh capital, the visual prominence of the building is appropriate. The manner of its procurement, however, is by no means the old public-sector route. It was built by a joint-venture developer as part of the St David’s 2 complex, which will complete towards the end of the year. And it was a design and build contract, with BDP doing detailed designs up to Stage E and keeping a monitoring role, while contractor Laing O’Rourke went with Bristol-based Stride Treglown for the final stages, specification and building. BDP then came roaring back in with the valuable contract for the fit-out design – again working with Stride Treglown – so the original architect has had more influence over the way people experience the library than is often the case, when fit-out is done by others. One might justifiably ask why the same architect could not just do everything from start to finish, but this was a matter of client loyalties, says BDP. Its responsibility was to the developer client, while Stride Treglown was with the contractor.  BDP also dealt with the requirements of the Cardiff library service and was charged with monitoring the design and build team.

It seems that the twin-architect arrangement worked pretty well. In all the horsetrading over costs that always attend such projects, the form of the building as designed did not change significantly.  Properly radiused corners with curved glass, for instance, were not replaced with clunky facetted equivalents and the building is all the better for it. The cladding supplier was changed, but that had no serious consequence for the design. And the client’s commitment to sustainability meant a design certified as ‘excellent’ by Breeam – BDP’s own specialist sustainability unit was crucial to that – maintained its excellence throughout, complete with a proper green roof and natural (though mechanically assisted) ventilation.  However, opportunities for more green technology, such as BDP’s initial suggestion of using ground water, did not come to pass. And in parts of the interior, cost savings were made – for instance slate cladding on some areas of wall was replaced with slate-coloured paint.

The design-and-build aspect of procurement is visible in the usual lack of refinement in places. Exposed steel structure is a little clumsy, for instance in the main library entrance. So too is the way the cladding meets – or rather, does not quite meet – the ground. A rough-and-ready concrete block plinth has been made to serve the purpose, somewhat uneasily.  Inside, the exposed in-situ concrete structure is slightly inconsistent in finish, and tends towards roughness. The soffit to the timber roof, its coffers containing acoustic-absorbing panels, is fine from a distance, not so fine when seen close up on the top floor where it swoops down low. But I think BDP was fully aware of the nature of the process, and designed a building that could cope with the expected slight coarsening that D+B brings. This is borne out by the excellent overall experience of using the library – and it was being well used on the Wednesday I visited. This is because the big design moves, in particular that geometrical skewing, work. Walkways that cross the atrium are slightly staggered to avoid undue repetition and improve views. A children’s library on a mezzanine level, separately accessed from the foyer, is secure without being nannyish. 
The quality of interior fit-out is very good, with stylish black carpet tiles (slightly let down by large orange blobs where they cross the bridge walkways) and excellent furniture.  Bespoke bookshelves, arranged in island units, are finished in white-painted steel. Such things make a big difference – too many libraries are let down by cheap off-the-peg products. There is also variety, both in furniture and in layout, to provide areas with a subtly different feel within what are generally open-plan spaces.

This is a building which is visually oriented mostly north towards the city, rather than south, to Cardiff Bay and the sea. One can see why, because immediately to the south is a monstrous tall hotel slab that almost completely blocks any possible view in that direction.  But this does not matter since the library now provides a considerably better termination of the street axis from the centre, masking the unfortunate hotel from most viewpoints.

As a civic marker on what is still the perceived edge of the central area, BDP’s Cardiff City Library performs a valuable function urbanistically.  All the action in Cardiff in recent years has been down in the bay: this building marks a welcome regeneration of the real centre. This might not be the way civic buildings were built in the past, and the procurement process may not be perfect, but it does show that public buildings of real integrity can emerge from the commercial sector.

DATABASE: CARDIFF LIBRARY
IN A LARGE FLOOR-PLATE public library, how best to organise the children’s section?  Simply providing a specialist ‘pod’ area, as is the case in other parts of the building, would be too difficult to supervise – children could wander off, disappear down escalators, get lost – everyone’s nightmare. And in these paranoid times, the idea that adults could wander unchecked into the kiddies’ section is equally unthinkable. 
BDP has made a reasonably secure children’s library which is completely separate from the rest. Because the ground level is double-height to allow for mezzanines within restaurants and supplies ingress, it was comparatively straightforward to make a separate mezzanine accessed via its own staircase and the main bank of lifts from the entrance foyer. Escalators leading to the main body of the library bypass this level, making it easy to supervise. It has its own dedicated toilets. The furniture is high quality, particularly the ovoid bookshelf units which contain cave-like upholstered seating.
Areas for different age groups lead to a circular section on one corner of the building which is a like a large playpen but is in fact for storytelling in groups. This whole section feels ‘young’ without being condescending.

SPECIFICATIONS
Acoustics Hunter Acoustics
Brass cladding (KME) Richardsons
Curtain walling (Kawneer) SIAC
Roof coverings Richardson Roofing
Glulam roof structure Carevalue
Lifts and escalators Kone
Composite flooring Studwelders Ltd
Pre-cast stairs and landings Expanded
Louvres Sofia
Roof lights ESB
Sedum roof Greenroof Ltd (BCH)
Raised/computer flooring Kingspan Flooring
Timber windows SG Windows
Balustrades OMC
Internal carpentry/joinery GE Carpentry
Bespoke shelving Remploy
Wall and floor tiling Keith Evans
Fixed furniture Vetter

CREDITS
Architect, interior design and sustainability including Breeam assessment BDP
Civil and structural engineer Arup
M&E engineer Foreman Roberts
Quantity surveyor, management services, CDM co-ordination Gardiner & Theobald
Civil and structural engineer (site monitoring) Waterman Group
Main contractor Laing O’Rourke  
Contractor’s architect Stride Treglown
Contractor’s M&E engineer McCann & Partners
Acoustic consultant Hunter Acoustics
Planning consultant Turley Associates
Acoustics consultant Arup
Access consultant David Bonnett Associates
Fire consultant Jeremy Gardner Associates
Utilities consultant Kelly Taylor
Traffic consultant Scott Wilson

IN NUMBERS
Area 55,000 ft; 90,000 books, 10,000 CDs/DVDs, 90+ PCs for public use; 2 listening hubs, 4 visual needs pods, 10,000 Welsh language items, 10,000 community language items