Centenary Square, Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2ND
Contractor: Emcor
Consultant: CAPITA
The Old
The current building – Birmingham Central Library, opened in 1973 and is the busiest public library in Britain, attracting more than 1.5 million visitors per year. The design, however, is inflexible and cannot be easily adapted to keep up with ever changing developments in ICT and patterns of use for learning, information and culture.
The New
The largest in Europe, designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo, the new Library has ten floors, nine floors above and one floor below ground, and is expected to attract 10,000 visitors per day. The development also includes a new flexible circa 300 seat studio theatre which is shared by both the library and the adjoining Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
The centralised multi floor controls philosophy is provided by the use of:
- Head end supervisory PC with adjustable client specific timed functions
- Lighting control via zencontrol DSI 10 LCMs and DALI 5 Channel hard wired controllers
- General office and corridor PIR control
- 1700 zencontrol Ektor LED fires finished White, Black and Gold with DALI feedback
- Emergency Test and Monitoring
For more projects like the Library of Birmingham that zencontrol have developed, see our projects page here.