To Celebrate Green Libraries week, we take a look back at an article first published in Information Professional in June 2023.

Wright & Wright Architects have worked on a number of major library, archive and gallery projects, with a focus on sustainable design. Here, Passivhaus Designer and Associate at Wright & Wright Kirsty Shankland looks at how sustainability and environmental impact considerations are delivering new standards for the sector.

FOUNDED in 1994, London-based Wright & Wright Architects specialise in the design of archives, libraries and galleries. The Women’s Library, completed in 2002, was the practice’s first library project and at the time was hailed as an exemplar of sustainable architecture, as the UK’s first passively-controlled archive to be built in an urban setting.

Subsequent projects have presented an opportunity to evolve these ideas further and challenge ourselves as designers. In 2018, Wright & Wright capitalised on knowledge acquired over many years to publish a book on Special Collections, amplified by contributions from leading industry experts. Intended as a typological and historical survey, it went beyond discussing technical requirements to illuminate the many facets of a complex and highly specialised building type.

It is widely known that the UK government has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the UK to net zero by 2050. The construction industry is a significant contributor to the emissions generated by the built environment, which make up 40 per cent of the UK’s overall emissions. In response, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has developed the 2030 Climate Challenge strategy, which sets out a series of targets to be adopted on projects, with the aim of reducing operational energy and embodied carbon, while improving potable water, mental and physical health and wellbeing.

When designing a genuinely sustainable library, the decisions made at the very start of a project are crucial to its success. These include:

•

Managing building orientation to ensure that users occupy spaces around the -perimeter to benefit from natural light and ventilation;

•

placing archive stores in the depth of the plan in sealed, environmentally stable containers;

•

developing a simple, uncomplicated structure to reduce embodied carbon;

•

selecting materials from sustainable sources that will endure over time;

•

detailing the building envelope to ensure thermal efficiency.

Once these key decisions have been agreed and energy requirements minimised, renewable energy sources can be introduced to meet the building’s energy demand and reduce or negate the need for fossil fuels.

Sustainable framework

There are a number of internationally recognised sustainability accreditation programmes for buildings. While these in themselves do not guarantee a sustainable building – and should be critically examined to understand any blind spots – they can provide a useful framework to ensure that initial intent is not lost in the course of the building process. Zero-carbon design, BREEAM and Passivhaus are often used within the construction industry to measure the sustainability credentials of a project. While each approach has advantages and disadvantages, Wright & Wright has successfully adopted these techniques on a variety of library projects, including St John’s College, Oxford, Corpus Christi College (below), Oxford and Lambeth Palace Library in London.

Completed in 2019, a major new Library and Study Centre for St John’s College, Oxford was designed to achieve net zero-carbon. The project achieved carbon neutrality by reducing emissions as much as possible at the design stage and offsetting the remaining carbon through the use of renewable energy.

The college’s existing libraries are housed in the Grade I-listed Canterbury Quadrangle, one of Britain’s most significant baroque ensembles. Set within the President’s garden and bordering the Groves, a Grade II-listed garden, the new Library and Study Centre is linked to the 16th century Old Library and 17th century Laudian Library, establishing an active connection between Canterbury Quad and the college’s northern precincts, strengthening links between different eras and reactivating the heart of St John’s. Adding to the historic continuum of St John’s, the new building is an outstanding academic library for the digital age. Set on a challenging site, its elegant, contemporary architectural language abstracts the college’s baroque heritage, while achieving new benchmarks in sustainable design.

The 1,940 sqm Study Centre incorporates a number of sophisticated passive environmental control measures designed to reduce its energy consumption. The building has a high thermal mass with an emphasis on natural ventilation and daylighting. An arterial system of ducts and tunnels funnel air through the concrete mass to heat and cool spaces. Heating and cooling are provided by water from ground-source boreholes under the adjacent Great Lawn, and photovoltaic panels – which are either hidden discreetly behind parapets or integrated in the central mono-pitched roof – contribute to electricity generation. Such measures are designed to fully offset the building’s carbon emissions to achieve a carbon-neutral status in both the new and old buildings. Basement archive stores meet the exemplary conservation standards of BS 4971 and are regulated by simple conservation heating and cooling, as well as being fire-protected by a gas suppression system.

Passivhaus design

Around the time the St John’s project was completing, Wright & Wright were commissioned by Corpus Christi College, Oxford to design a new Special Collections Centre and Library. The innovative design will be delivered to rigorous Passivhaus standards of construction, energy use and environmental control. In 2017 the University of Oxford Estates Department elected to use the Passivhaus methodology to guide its projects, and while Corpus Christi is not required to adopt this method, it has opted to undertake a challenging approach to sustainability. In order to achieve this, the building must be designed to an energy demand threshold of 15kWh/m2/year, a much more rigorous target compared with the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge strategy, which calls for a 35kWh/m2/year threshold.

As one of Oxford’s oldest and smallest colleges, Corpus Christi is characterised by a spirit of architectural and academic intimacy. Wright & Wright’s proposals carefully unpick, restore and augment the existing building fabric, while adding distinctive contemporary elements. Notably, a new ashlar stone facade on Oriel Square with a large glazed opening alludes to the historic notion of the ‘library window’, acting as a new marker for the college, consolidating its civic presence and reframing its relationship with the wider urban realm. Along with creating more suitable conditions for holding and maintaining the college’s valuable archive, the project also improves accessibility to the Special Collection and creates more spatially efficient and experientially uplifting conditions for readers and staff. In expanding user provision, the remodelled building will create 55 new reader spaces for Corpus members and six additional spaces within the Special Collections area for researchers. An additional 2,000 linear metres of shelving will be added for the storage of manuscripts and early printed books.

The remodelled library is designed to meet the stringent requirements of Passivhaus in order to provide an ultra-low energy building that requires very little space heating. To achieve this, the design team have adopted the key Passivhaus principles: provide high levels of insulation, omit thermal bridges, specify high performance triple-glazed windows with insulated frames, ensure airtight building fabric and design a mechanical and ventilation system with highly efficient heat recovery. Rigorous construction auditing systems ensure that sustainability targets are delivered through high-quality construction. Meeting the requirements of Passivhaus within a constrained site and using historic fabric has been a challenge. Incorporating high levels of insulation has increased the depth of the walls and roof on an already tight site. This has been carefully managed to ensure the brief is fully accommodated. Corpus Christi and the design team have actively responded to the climate conversation to deliver a pioneering and highly sustainable building emblematic of the college’s future development. The project is due to be completed in autumn 2023.

Sympathetic design

Another Wright & Wright project, almost 10 years in the making, is the new Lambeth Palace Library, which was completed in 2020 and opened to the public in 2021. The project was awarded the coveted BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) ‘Excellent’ rating. Launched in 1990, BREEAM criteria are broken down into the following areas: energy, health, wellbeing, transport, water use, ecology and biodiversity, materials, waste and pollution. All these factors are awarded credits and the overall score achieved dictates a building’s certification rating.

The library is the first new building on the site of Lambeth Palace for 185 years and will house the Church of England’s archive – the most important collection of religious books, manuscripts and archives in Europe, after the Vatican. The building is a sensitive yet distinctly modern architectural addition to the site of the Grade I listed palace. Nestled among mature trees at the north end of Lambeth Palace’s private garden, the building sits on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Westminster Parliament. The location preserves the collection’s historic link to the palace, while increasing public accessibility. The new building brings together the historic collections of Lambeth Palace Library – founded in 1610 and one of the earliest public libraries in the UK – and the records of the Church of England, preserving them for the benefit of future generations.

The brick facade was designed in response to neighbouring Morton’s Tower, the Tudor-era gateway to Lambeth Palace, and blends into the red brick perimeter wall that encloses the palace garden. The library’s facilities include a public reading room, a group working area and seminar rooms, together with a top floor events space, with seating for up to 70 people, and a roof terrace. In addition, it houses a specialist conservation studio to accommodate up to eight full-time conservators, and office space for up to 30 library staff. All public spaces and the reading room benefit from carefully attuned natural light and provide curated views across the palace garden.

The library layout is designed to minimise the building’s footprint and enhance the local ecology; it acts as a barrier between the palace garden and Lambeth Road, significantly reducing noise and air pollution in the garden, while accommodating a new and enlarged pond and wetland glade. The result is a low-carbon building that uses the building’s structure and fabric to regulate the environment in the archive stores and avoid the need for expensive and complex air conditioning solutions. The building is fully electric, with its energy demand being met by photovoltaics mounted on the lower roofs flanking the central tower.

The climate crisis is challenging the way in which architects design. It is imperative that buildings use less carbon in their construction and require less energy to run. At Wright & Wright we are fascinated by how buildings are made and endure, articulated through an understanding of the inherent properties of materials and the importance of durability and skilful detailing. We hope that this meticulous approach to design creates buildings that not only exceed expectations on completion, but also age gracefully within historic surroundings, standing the test of time, which to us, is truly the most sustainable solution.

Wright and Wright

Join us today to support us in our mission, gain a boost in your career, or to start making a bigger impact in your industry.