Canadian civitas.

Environmentally responsive yet appropriately civic, this new library on the outskirts of Toronto demonstrates the significance of such buildings in the cultural and educational life of the nation.

The Richmond Hill Central Library is the first completed building of a new Civic Centre which has been planned for a rapidly growing community situated on the outskirts of Toronto. Located on a prominent site high up on a ridge of land that is close to the original centre of Richmond Hill, it overlooks the town to the south and the city beyond. Within the framework established by a master plan for the site, it is this library which defines a new town green that will form the central public space at the heart of the Civic Centre. But also, and perhaps more importantly, it has established the concept of an environmentally responsive and civic architecture appropriate for the construction of a modern civilised city.

The library is an important public institution and educational facility. It is also one to which Canadians still attribute major significance in the development of new communities and the building of a nation. Consequently this particular building has been planned to create a definite physical presence in that community which it serves. Organised on three floors to house 170 000 volumes in a total of 7500 sq m of new space its internal planning reflects a rational ordering for the storage of information and a concern to create a series of generous, well-proportioned rooms where people can meet, browse, read and study. The building is comprised of two double volume spaces stacked one above the other. Each has an intermediate mezzanine. Public areas most frequently used - the children's library, meeting rooms, exhibition spaces, a coffee shop and the main reception areas - have been planned at street level fronting the town green with the main stacks, reading areas, reference rooms and a city archive above within the upper volume. Generous sweeping staircases provide obvious routes through the building and create direct visual connections between floors.

The design of this library has been developed in both plan and section so as to assertively express the physical order and form of both its organisation and construction. In this respect it not only builds on a distinguished typological tradition rooted in the work of Wren, Labrouste and McKim, Mead & White but also explores issues related to the immediate physical environment and the setting of the building in a relatively harsh northern climate.

Unlike much recent architecture which is preoccupied merely with surface and shape, the design of the new Richmond Hill Library is based on a thoughtful consideration of space making which has been thoroughly integrated with the design of systems of structure and environmental servicing, The scheme is planned on a tartan grid which clearly designates served and servant spaces. A reinforced concrete structure, with major service runs accommodated between concrete beams that form the minor bays and which in turn define the major spaces of the library, is clearly articulated and expressed throughout the whole building. It is a discipline which also defines where and how natural light is introduced into the building. The library has been designed using a limited palette of materials extremely carefully detailed in its assembly so as to underline these systems of order. Together these moves combine to suggest a definite sense of permanency with a series of dignified spaces planned within clearly stated hierarchies.

In the design these systems acknowledge the different levels of the building with the development of an increasing lightness as you move into and up through the building. So large round mushroom-headed columns at the lower levels support clusters of four smaller columns above. Within a symmetrical order the plan has been developed with a distinct front and back while the north side is closed to provide protection from both the weather and the traffic noise from an adjacent busy road, a largely glazed south-facing arcaded facade has been extended to create a distinct civic front to the library. There are fine views from many of the public rooms out over the city beyond. However this is a move which also allows the exposed thermal mass of the building to take full advantage of the location on a prominent south-facing site.

While natural light is harmful to print material it is also essential in creating spaces which are habitable and humane. So brises-soleil and a system of finely detailed suspended cones within a series of circular rooflights help to filter or reflect the natural daylight which has been introduced into the heart of the Richmond Hill Library.

Contained within the explicit geometries of the structural frame these details introduce an intricate complexity and manipulation of daylight within the interior spaces of the building which recalls the work of Soane. Externally, vertical fins not only figure on the more closed north elevation but have also been designed to prevent low north-west lightfrom penetrating the reference reading room.

A concern for the design of buildings which support and encourage a public urban life while also taking account of climate and the rigour of construction has been a consistent preoccupation in the work of this practice. It is a concern that has been clearly inspired by A.J. Diamond's direct experience of working with Louis Kahn. The design for the HUB Building at the University of Calgary in Edmonton, which A.J. Diamond developed in collaboration with Barton Myers in the late '60s, promoted the idea that the physical form of the new student building be considered as a response to the problems of creating a setting for a public life in an extremely inclement climate. This scheme combined a mix of uses - housing, restaurants and facilities for students - within a linear building planned so as to form a new covered 'public' street that in turn linked two major centres of activity on the campus. It is a building which still works extremely well today and those same concerns are clearly reflected in the development of subsequent projects by A.J. Diamond, Donald Schmitt such as the Earth Sciences Centre for the University of Toronto and the Student Centre for the University in Ontario (AR May 1993). This specific response to climate and its effect on architectural form has also, by design, placed particular importance on the development of an improved urban life and it is this combination which distinguishes the work of these particular architects and establishes that work within a wider international significance.