Sustainable Futures Wright & Wright - Flipbook - Page 5
Foreword
Pip Willcox
‘Collections, like the
earth, are given to
us for a short while
to care for, to do
our best to hand
on in a better
condition than we
inherited them’
With my colleagues, I care for Lambeth
Palace’s internationally significant
collections, comprising the historic
library and archive of the Archbishops
of Canterbury and the archive of the
national church. We do this in a
magnificent new library building,
which opened in 2020, designed by
Wright & Wright.
It marks an enormous change from
previous library life in Lambeth Palace,
where parts of the collections were
originally housed. Some artefacts were
kept in a tower accessible only by spiral
staircase, some in a room whose oldest
wall dated from the 14th century, some
across a courtyard and behind some
loos. The reading room was unheated,
and lights could only be turned off at
the fuse box.
It might sound like Hogwarts, but the
reality of caring for a living collection in
such conditions was less romantic. Little
wonder we’re so enamoured of the new
building. Wright & Wright collaborated
closely with Library staff to understand
our collections and how we work with
them, our values and our hopes for what
they could become. But it’s not just an
exceptional building, with the highest
standards for conserving and working
with collections; the new Library is also
a paradigm of sustainable design.
Sustainability is critically important
to the church and the Church
Commissioners. In 2020 General Synod
set the whole church an ambitious
challenge to be net zero carbon by 2030.
It is equally important to Wright &
Wright, whose design embraces a
number of passive principles, from
creating a building that occupies just
3% of the total area of the Archbishop’s
garden, to establishing a temporary
home for the wildlife in the pond that
was here before we were.
Mindful of the imperative to conserve
resources in the longer term, the new
Library is designed to endure and
age gracefully. In practical terms,
its effectiveness is enhanced by its
negligible consumption of energy, low
carbon emissions and a philosophy of
low maintenance. Half the Library’s
energy requirements are generated by
photovoltaic panels on the roof, while
rainwater is channelled into a new
pond in the Archbishop’s garden,
encouraging biodiversity as part of a
wider landscaping strategy.
The building’s highly insulated
masonry mass acts as a mechanism of
natural heating and cooling while the
largely imperforate form shields the
Archbishop’s garden from the noise
and pollution of Lambeth Palace Road.
Inside the eight storey tower, which
raises our collections above the potential
flood level, there is a concrete shell.
This helps to save on the energy required
to maintain the collections at a stable
humidity and temperature, so the plant
need only be operational for just an hour
a day in each of the archive stores.
Collections, like the earth, are given
to us for a short while to care for, to do
our best to hand on in a better condition
than we inherited them. Lambeth’s
collection was founded in 1610 by
Archbishop Bancroft and has endured
a number of scares in its long history:
broken up and sent to Cambridge during
the English Civil War and bombed
during the Second World War.
Since its foundation the Library has
been open to the public. Now, it’s
safeguarded for centuries to come.
And we’re able to welcome more visitors
than ever before; to our reading room,
to our exhibitions and to events such as
this forum on sustainability, in which
the importance of sustainable design,
now and in the future, is brought to
life by a group of leading specialists
exploring a diverse range of topics,
from engineering to biophilia.
Opposite:
Queen Elizabeth I at prayer
from a book of Christian
prayers and meditations, 1569
Foreword
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