The green building sector reached another important first with the opening of the world’s first green library for children in Singapore.

The Central Public Library in Singapore, called My Tree House, was recently awarded the Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark Platinum Award.

The Building and Construction Authority (BCA), a government agency in Singapore, falls under the umbrella of the Ministry of National Development and aims to “champion the development of an excellent built environment for Singapore.”

My Tree House was developed by Singapore-based City Developments Limited (CDL) in conjunction with the National Library Board.

The library achieved the title for the developers’ incorporation of LED lighting, refurbished bookshelves and use of sustainable carpeting materials. As its name suggests, the library contains a tree house, the canopy of which has been made from 3,000 recycled plastic bottles.

My Tree House

My Tree House- The Recycled Tree Canopy.

The library has been designed to help educate children on environmental issues through a “knowledge tree” and a shadow wall provides an engaging and sensory experience to promote conversation.

Children interested in meteorology can experience Singapore’s temperature, rainfall and wind speed through the library’s Weather Stump, which collects information directly from the Meteorological Service in Singapore.

In addition to its environmental focus, the library was built as a centre which embodies the learning experience for children. The National Library Board aimed to “cultivate children’s interest in environmental conservation through reading, discovering and engagement in green activities, and nurture then to be environmentally-conscious adults.”

The library will stock 45,000 books, of which 30 per cent will focus on green areas such as plants, water resources, the weather, recycling, climate change and animals. The other 70 per cent will be fiction books.

My Tree House

My Tree House- Library Activities & Focus

My Tree House library is housed in the National Library Building, which was awarded the Green Mark Platinum Award from the BCA in 2005 and 2009. In 2007, the National Library Building earned first prize in the ASEAN Energy Efficiency Awards in the ‘New and Existing Building’ category.