St David's Scoops Award for Central Library

Cardiff's new central library has scooped a number of prestigious Local Authority Building Control (LABC) awards and is now in the running to win the UK wide awards in London this October.

Cardiff's new central library has scooped a number of prestigious Local Authority Building Control (LABC) awards and is now in the running to win the UK wide awards in London this October.

The iconic city centre building was judged winner in the Sustainability and Public Buildings categories for the Cardiff round of the industry awards and has recently gone on to win the regional South Wales award for Sustainability and was highly commended in the Public Buildings category.

The new library was built by contractors Laing O'Rourke thanks to £13m funding from St. David's Partnership, the joint venture between Land Securities and Capital Shopping Centres.

Provided to the city of Cardiff, the library has always set out to become one of the most sustainable buildings in the city centre. Its wide ranging sustainable features have helped secure this position and the LABC awards have further cemented this.

Jamie Payne at St. David's Partnership said: 'These awards really reflect the hard work that has gone into the design and build of the project. The whole team involved in the library are proud to not only have been recognised for the sustainability credentials in both the Cardiff and Regional awards, but to have also won the Cardiff award for public buildings really cements the reason why so much effort went into the building process.'

Building Excellence is a unique award scheme aimed at all sections of the building industry to encourage and commend excellent construction. LABC's mission is to ensure that buildings are healthy, safe, sustainable and accessible for all users and tenants whether domestic, commercial or public service. In recent years local authority building control teams have shifted the emphasis of their work from "tick box" checking at the end of building projects to helping developers, designers and builders to make the best choices throughout the whole process.

Darryn Parry from Laing O'Rourke said: 'To have been involved in the build of the library, which is set to become one of Cardiff's most iconic buildings is an excellent coup and makes us, as a company, very proud. The winning of the awards is the cherry on the cake, it is good to see all our hard work come to fruition and the whole team at Laing O'Rourke have their fingers crossed for the national awards in London.'

The LABC is divided into 14 regions, including North and South Wales; South Yorkshire and Humber; and West Yorkshire and each region hosts their own LABC awards to showcase local projects, the winners of these then get put through to the national awards ceremony in London. 

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