12 June 1986 Ivey Hall to be redeveloped in to Lincoln College Library

Funds have been approved by the Government for strengthening, restoration, and redeveloping of the 19th-century Ivey Hall on Lincoln College campus as the college library.

The redevelopment is expected to cost about $4 million, according to the Principal of Lincoln College (Professor Bruce Ross).

Professor Ross was told late last week by the Minister of Education (Mr Russell Marshall) that finance had been approved.

Redevelopment of Ivey Hall as the library would meet the present requirements of the college and also have room  for later extension

The façade of Ivey Hall—the original agricultural college at Lincoln—will be retained.

Professor Ross said tenders for the redevelopment would close early in July, and work was expected to start soon after that.

The library should be ready for the 1989 teaching year.

“We are thrilled that the Government has given us the go-ahead at this time,” he said.

“We desperately need the space, but at the same time we know there are restraints on Government expenditure, so we do appreciate getting the permission now.”

Professor Ross said the library was the heart of a university.

“This project will put the heart of this university back into Ivey Hall—the original building and the centre of the campus. I suppose there is some sentimental reason for having the library in that building.”

Professor Ross said the redevelopment would also allow the heart of the university to function properly. The existing library, in the eight-storey Registry, was very congested, with some volumes having to be stored in restricted access.

“This will allow the library to function as it should.”

Professor Ross said that any further extension of the library would depend on the way the college expanded in future.

The size of a library depended on the number of subjects and the disciplines being covered. Extra students did not cause such a strain on a library as having extra disciplines.

Extra students did mean something in terms of extra reading space in the library; there were more people wanting to use the space.

The total roll of the college had expanded faster than the number of students in residence, he said.

“There are more students coming to the college each day from off-campus, and they need somewhere to work.

"They can’t go back to their own rooms the way residents can, so the library is the nerve centre for them where they work, so that is important,” he said.

Professor Ross said that when the college got into completely new disciplines, such as tourism, there had to be new holdings of books, journals and other material.

“So that expansion into new disciplines is much more demanding on storage space than numbers in existing disciplines,” he said.

Ivey Hall’s architectural character is to be retained as much as possible in the redevelopment.

Work has been going on for some time to preserve architectural features of the façade.

The present north, east and west façades of the historic building will be retained.

A two-storey reinforced concrete building will be constructed behind these façades.

Restoration and strengthening the façades will bring the building into line with present seismic codes.

The elaborate porchway of Ivey Hall will be the main entrance of the new library.

Overall area of the restored building will be 2,712 square metres, giving an area of 1,795 square metres not counting walls, stairs, lifts, toilets, service rooms and circulation space, and passageways in the open-plan library.

Some stone fireplaces, kauri-panelled doors and staircases have been preserved, and these will be integrated into the new building.

The present timber-framed slate roof will be replaced to the same profile, slates will be reused and the moulded tile ridging will be reinstated.

A feature will be a landscaped courtyard on the south side of the building.

The south wall and the walls of the courtyard will be brick-faced reinforced concrete to retain the character and continuity of existing façades with narrow, deep-revealed windows.

A double-glazed wall will give a visual extension from the interior of the library into the courtyard.

A curved screen wall of the courtyard could be used as part of the façade for future extension.

A concrete floor slab will replace the present timber floor of the ground floor of Ivey Hall.

The first floor will be suspended with prestressed and reinforced concrete elements supported on one-way reinforced concrete beams, also by a wall and column structure.

The roof shape will be retained by using timber trusses.

Seismic loads will be resisted by squat shear walls having a stiffness compatible with existing masonry.

New foundations will be linked with existing foundations to minimise differences in the building settling.