Library within a landscape: the book displaces soil The partially subterranean Sci-Tech Library opens out to Maze Green, and invites the landscape into its stepping, terraced interior space. The books are placed at the back, towards City Road, and the people are at the front facing the park. The creation of an internal landscape led the interior design – the carpet is custom designed to evoke the forest floor in autumnal and spring colours; the shapes of the terraces are traced by low height organically shaped walls. The artist Sue Knight created artwork for tabletops within the terraces that add another layer of landscape to the scene. Furniture is either built in to emphasise the connection to landscape, and ground the scheme, or it is loose and colourful as part of a naturally vibrant palette. The library interior is designed to cater for different modes of learning, from noisy-public-informal, to quiet-private-formal. The intensity of interaction is graduated across the library from the most collaborative areas near the entry, through the bookstacks that frame individual group spaces to the quietest areas for reflection that sit below City Road. The open-air amphitheatre in the plaza above also acts as a light-scoop for these quiet study areas below. Along the City Road footpath a serrated window provides views from the street into the library space below and through to a glimpse of Maze Green. A colour field is generated by the tops of the Marmoleum clad bookshelves. The library combines the use of chilled beams with an air displacement system, improving

energy efficiency, indoor air quality as well as reducing the associated noise of a conventional air-conditioning system. Student Services Offices The Student Services brief highlighted the need for student services to be centralised to better assist students and visitors to the university campus – centralised Student Services allowed for better 'one-stop-shop' service. The design reflects current trends in commercial environments promoting modular, flexible, open plan workplaces with centralised and shared support spaces such as meeting rooms, consultation rooms, utilities and breakout spaces. The open plan allows greater flexibility and minimises costs associated with staff churn and ongoing departmental change. The main student services entrance from City Road has direct connectivity to the Plaza and bridge which links the two sides of the campus. Students and visitors are greeted by a triage service, and an interconnecting stair and void provides connectivity between reception zones. Consultation rooms, meeting rooms, cashier facilities and touch-down support terminals are incorporated within the student services reception hub. Staff offices are situated to the rear of the reception zones and linked through shared facilities to the floors above. The project adopts the primary use of chilled beams to condition the air, applying the simple concept of providing cooling using water, not air. The air supply is 100% fresh air. The office component of the project achieved a 5 Star Green Star rating, and the overall project achieved a design rating of 5 Stars ABGR.