A playground for the rich and famous in its heyday, by the turn of the millennium, Double Bay’s glamorous reputation had begun to slide. Steep rents and fierce competition from the mammoth new shopping centre up the road took a heavy toll. By the mid-2000s, over half of Double Bay’s retail stores sat vacant. Woollahra Council developed a strategy to revive its ageing village precinct, with a new ‘destination library’ as the centrepiece.

Today, Double Bay is buzzing once again, but with a different kind of energy. The library’s design embodies that energy with a sense of youth, community, diversity and environmental consciousness.

Woollahra Library is both a reflection of the changing face of Double Bay, and the changing role of libraries in society. Libraries have evolved to stimulate learning and creativity, not just through books, but through digital and social exchange.

The library has become a community hub, catering to an increasingly wide demographic. It serves as a play area, study centre, workspace, meeting point and events venue. It’s still an important repository for books, and a high-tech host to a vast digital collection. Library members can access a treasure trove of ebooks and audio books, films, journals, training tools and databases.

In its former life, Woollahra Library was a library inside a garden. The new design brings the garden inside the library. Visitors are greeted by a flourishing green wall with ivy cascading from the balustrades above.

A series of organic shaped voids and an inviting central staircase welcome users into the space, connecting and opening up the three levels. Timber-slatted ceilings, tree trunk-like columns and vibrant splashes of colour add to the sense of stepping inside a living ecosystem.

On level one, library visitors can post their book returns through a green wall, and peek into the Automated Returns Room. A concierge style entry sets the tone for the experience with a welcoming human face. No longer desk-bound, iPad-equipped librarians wander from floor-to-floor offering assistance.

The central stair is a functional, multi-purpose space. It offers individual seating and can be transformed into a theatrette for movies on the retractable screen. It leads up to level two, where most of the collection resides. Here you’ll find a variety of reading and study nooks, lounge seating and a dedicated young adult space.

The top floor provides a contemplative quiet room and a series of study spaces catering to individuals and different group sizes.

A scattering of booths, tables and meeting rooms encourage people to gather and stay all day. This level also hosts the local history collection and a cosy reading room with leather lounges.

Tactile and interactive, green and leafy, the library is a stimulating learning environment.

The Junior Library in particular, is ripe for nurturing growing imaginations. Arrive beneath the rainbow ceiling through the ‘iPad treehouse’, or down the slide into a cave filled with colourful pebbles and caterpillar-shaped book boxes.

Storytelling and activities in the arts-and-crafts corner are brought to life by an interactive floor projection.

Since opening, Woollahra Library has been highly awarded and praised as an outstanding example of a contemporary, digital-age library.

Most importantly, the community response has been resoundingly enthusiastic. Months after opening, visitor numbers jumped from 450 per day to 2,500. After 2021’s lockdown, the library bounced back in days, as people sought-out hybrid working environments, and reconnection with the community.

Woollahra Library has taken its place as an emblem of the local identity, and a driving force for renewal and change.