This renovation and new construction project required intensive preconstruction services due to the sloping, rocky terrain and tight site restrictions not normally seen on an urban campus setting. The project entailed the renovation of four floors and seven levels of stacks and also included a new 45,000-SF addition to the library. On a 205' x 80' site, pinched between the existing library the college’s main cafeteria and steam plant, our firm constructed the new library addition. Site limitations also included a main construction access point that was shared with the many delivery trucks going to and from the cafeteria and steam generation plant.

The existing library dates back to 1937, the new addition ties in to the existing structure and required the matching of floor plates to allow windows of the old structure to become doorways into the new addition. The foundation of the addition bears on rock, and the fully finished basement was constructed as a slab on-grade, requiring soil retention, rock anchoring and sheeting on three sides to hold back the hillside. To resolve the sloping site topography, the first floor was constructed on a concrete framed slab with the balance of the building composed of structural steel. The first floor concrete framing tied into the foundation walls of the existing library, creating a frame that resists the unbalanced earth loads placed on the structure due to the sloping site.

A crane rested on the first floor concrete slab while the balance of the building's frame was erected. The crane's positioning on the first floor elevated slab required heavy shoring extending from the underside of the first floor slab to the basement level slab. The site restrictions came into play during steel erection and prevented the construction of the building in a conventional manner. Instead of erecting the structure upward, floor-by-floor; floors 2-4 were erected to their full height at one end of the building, and then the process was repeated moving horizontally across the building, bay-by-bay. This was the best choice of construction to allow for complete access to the surrounding buildings by students and staff.

The main level of the library is at the third level and is accessed by a precast bridge. The exterior of the building is brick and EIFS with glass curtainwall.