Surry Hills Library and Community Centre

The project involved the construction of a new $14 million facility, including integrated local library, community centre and child care centre designed to specifically cater for various community needs.

Through innovative design the building established a new Australian standard of excellence for environmentally sustainable design in civic buildings, capturing a number of unique features such as: use of planting together with a thermal labyrinth for passive filtering and tempering of air; incorporation of extensive natural light; solar-tracking timber louvre systems; automated fabric shading; mixed mode ventilation; extensive photovoltaic array; geothermal cooling bores; green roof; rainwater collection and recycling; and sustainable material selection.

Group DLA were engaged as the appointed Accredited Certifier / Principal Certifying Authority (PCA), responsible for issue of Part 4A Construction and Occupation Certificates our involvement included the complex assessment of cutting edge environmental design, with extensive fire safety engineering, and the interplay of these elements with the performance based building code.