"SLQ immediately became my second house!" - Natalia's Story

I’m Natalia. I’m a Brazilian landscape architect and I’ve been living in Brisbane since January last year.

Natalia - State Library Member

I have five years of experience in the architecture field, and I also worked for the 2016 Olympic Games helping to plan the Olympic Park for Rio 2016. That’s when I discovered my passion for plants, the environment and the Permaculture philosophy, which was developed here by Bill Mollison. I decided to specialise in landscape architecture and that’s why I’m in Australia. In Brazil we don’t have this specialisation. I have studied something regarding spaces, proportions, landscapes, public areas, but I don’t know much at about species and horticulture. Also Brisbane is in the similar latitude as Rio so the climate is similar.

I visited SLQ probably the very first week I was in Brisbane. My husband and I were checking out South Bank and we decided to have a look at GOMA.  That’s when we saw the Library. At the time we didn’t have WiFi at home and so SLQ  immediately became my second house!

The building's architecture is amazing. You have different type of spaces for study, there’s this interaction with the river, with the trees. There’s plenty of natural lighting. It feels so good! I feel incredibly peaceful here. I can easily focus on what I have to do. I visited other libraries but they are often very busy and don’t offer the same environment. SLQ is my favourite.

At the moment I’m studying my specialisation but I’m also preparing for the IELTS exam, so I’m coming to the Library every day. Also, I’m planning to start working by myself, and I think I will keep coming here to work as well because it’s a place that I can stay for long hours and focus on my tasks. I only wish the Library could open at 8 or 9am and have a place where you can warm up your food for lunch!

As told to State Library Staff

Fed Pani

Visitor and Information Services