Green Square Has Scored a Futuristic New Library with a Plant-Filled Underground Reading Room

The Green Square Library has been nominated for Best New Space in our Best of 2018 awards. Like it? Vote for it right 'ere. 

Welcome to the future of libraries. When Green Square Library officially launched on Saturday, October 27, it unveiled way more than books — a high-tech lab, underground reading garden, amphitheatre, music room, cafe and meeting rooms are just some of its swish facilities.

The building, which you'll find in Zetland – around three kilometres south of Central Station – is hard to miss, thanks to its six-storey glass tower, which emerges from a tree-dotted plaza. Behind the partially subterranean architecture is Alexandria-based studio Stewart Hollenstein, whose design topped a 167-strong international competition held back in 2013.

While books — and underground gardens in which to read said books — are still the central focus of the library, it also features many spaces dedicated to music. The sprawling music room has a baby grand piano, which can be hired out by Beethoven hopefuls stuck in tiny Sydney apartments, and the open air amphitheatre will play host to many public gigs over the upcoming months.

As well as being an eye-catching piece of art itself, the library also contains two stunning installations. High Water, a series of massive LED screens that interpret local weather patterns in abstract colours, by Indigo Hanlee and Michael Thomas Hill dons the plaza, and Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro's Cloud Nation – a vintage aircraft with wings containing the miniature world of Laputa, from Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels – hangs inside the library.

Gaining 500 members in its first week, the library is quickly becoming a hit with locals. And we think the underground garden will be the perfect spot to escape the summer heat, book in hand, in the upcoming months.

Green Square Library is now open at 355 Botany Road, Zetland. It's open 10am–7pm, Monday to Wednesday; 10am–6pm, Thursday and Friday; and 10am–4pm, Saturday.

Images: Katherine Griffiths.