We are delighted to celebrate the opening of the Yangzheng Library in Tianshui City, Gansu Province, China, in April 2023. It is now open to the public for free, with more than 20,000 books available. It provides a learning and reading space for the locals while promoting sustainability and environmental protection through its zero-carbon design. The library covers an area of nearly 800 square meters and is located at an average altitude of 1,000 meters with long hours of sunlight and rich solar resources.

WT provided cost management services throughout the design, bidding, construction, and post-construction phases, and the entire project team overcame challenges related to the geographical environment, engineering construction, and energy technology, and obtained the Zero Energy Building certification during the design phase.

The library is transformed from a century-old building, with one side against the mountain and surrounded by residential communities. Minimising the impact on the natural environment has been a core focus of the project team. The building’s energy efficiency rate reaches 166% by reducing building energy consumption (including heating, air conditioning, ventilation, lighting, and domestic hot water) to the maximum extent through passive building design. Renewable energy, such as photovoltaic and wind power, is collected and transmitted to various electrical equipment in the library through centralised transformation. Energy storage devices are also set up.

Building a carbon neutral building incurs higher costs than a regular building, especially when the market in China is still in the transitional stage from ordinary building materials to green and low-carbon building materials. There are few suppliers that meet national standards and can produce or process such materials, making the inquiry process more challenging. To tackle this, we compared multiple schemes and conducted feasibility studies and analyses to implement stricter and more standardised cost monitoring, successfully assisted the client in achieving carbon neutrality goals within the budget.

We are proud to have contributed to this ground-breaking project and look forward to seeing how it positively impacts the community.