TL Robertson Library, Curtin University

Hames Sharley has partnered with Danish practice Schmidt Hammer Lassen to refurbish the TL Robertson Library at Curtin University in Perth, the centrepiece of Western Australia's largest campus. The brief turns a closed brutalist box into what the team calls a "living library", an open, day-lit building geared to the way students now use a learning commons.

Completed in 1972, the original library was deliberately designed with very little natural light to protect its physical collections, while drawing roughly two million visits a year. The new approach opens the structure to its green campus setting and to the wider Perth community. Timber and other natural materials bring the landscape inside; a lighter palette and elongated windows are used to create a new architectural language that sits in contrast to the retained concrete and brick.

The works are being delivered while the library remains operational. Completion is timed to the library's fiftieth anniversary in 2022.

Architecture: Hames Sharley in partnership with Schmidt Hammer Lassen. Architect of record: James Edwards. Photography: Hames Sharley.