By DUNCAN HEPBURN

Public buildings must serve as many of the community’s needs as possible. They should be exemplary in environmental and sustainability design.

This is especially true of a library, a focal point in a community. While it need not be extravagant, it should not be simply a box with books in it.

Constructing a public building today is a delicate act of balancing divergent desires and requirements. The building code determines some items that must go into the new building.

Then there are the many different interest groups — from environmentalists to design enthusiasts — who each think they know what the building should look like. Finally, there are the people who’ve been using the old building for years and have a really good sense of what’s needed.

Fortunately, architect Ladi Holovsky has designed a new library that has a good chance of satisfying almost everyone. Here are some of the ways in which he has addressed the challenge.

Today’s library must take account of environmental concerns. For example, provincial law requires that all public buildings be carbon neutral by next year. Our local bylaws also encourage energy efficient design standards, which, in the long term, save money as well as fossil fuels. The new building will incorporate passive solar heating, photovoltaic cells, a solar hot water panel on its roof and a solar wall.

Buildings are currently being built to standards established by Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED). LEED awards points for energy-saving devices such as low-flush toilets and maximum use of daylight. You need 39 points for LEED’s gold standard, which is likely to become the norm within a few years. The provincial government, the CRD, and the conditions for the $4.55 million grant we have been awarded all require us to comply with the LEED standards.

While energy-saving construction costs more initially, it will save us money over time. For example, the savings in the heating costs used in the proposed building is estimated to be well over $10,000 per year, paying back the entire capital cost of the geothermal well / heat pump system in about seven years.

Of course, the way we have to construct a new library today has an effect on how the building will look. To use as much daylight as possible for lighting and for passive solar heating, we have to have lots of glass windows, which contribute to a distinctly modern appearance.

The look of the building is also affected by other considerations. The law calls a library a “public assembly building” and applies a much stricter building code to it than is applied to residential buildings. For example, by law our library must have fire-stop floors and doors, a sprinkler system, a full-sized elevator (for stretcher access), several stairways, and more washrooms than we feel we really need.

Our library must also be seismicity-proofed. This means that concrete has to be used where we might have preferred wood or brick, such as around stairwells, which are the escape route from the building. We must also have reinforced concrete in the elevator shaft and in the floors and the east wall.

A number of design elements of the new building have resulted from the need to protect the creek at the rear of the lot. Permeable paving will allow water to seep into the ground instead of running directly into the creek. Precipitation on the roof will be absorbed by a “green roof.” The roof will also provide insulation in both winter and summer. An auxiliary water-storage catchment tank on the outside of the building will provide water for irrigation and to flush the toilets.

While our new library may not have a homely, cottage-like appearance, it will fit in well with new buildings constructed in the twenty-first century to satisfy all the new legislative and environmental requirements. A lot of work has gone into it. We hope you will like the design as much as we do.

The writer chairs the building committee of Salt Spring’s library board.