“A vibrant learning hub and home for the local community, strongly connected to its local context” was the Gisborne District Council’s design brief for the H B Williams Memorial Library extension.

The library is one of Gisborne District Council’s most used facilities, with up to 5,000 visitors a week. Chow:Hill’s vision for the iconic 1960s building was to take the modernist concrete aesthetic and weave cultural narratives, local history and manaakitanga into a contemporary community learning environment, providing a future-fit asset for the Council.

The project involved the extension and renovation of the original library to create a contemporary knowledge hub with a combined floor area of over 2000m² . The extension would provide 50 per cent more floor space and greater flexibility to offer additional community services.

Throughout the design process, stakeholder and cultural engagement was essential to explore and understand the future role of the library within the Tairāwhiti community. Chow:Hill also collaborated with the Gisborne District Council and cultural design director and tohunga Sir Derek Lardelli of Lardelli Arts.