University of Illinois, Oak Street Library

Urbana-Champaign, Illinois

This project was an addition to the existing UIUC Library Remote Storage Facility.  Phase III of IV, this phase will add approximately an 8,600 square foot book storage vault, housing an estimated 1.7-million volumes, and a 1,200 square foot mechanical penthouse.  The book storage vault uses high bay shelving to achieve high density storage, cataloged with barcodes and accessible from a specialized man-lift.  The book storage vault is designed to maintain strict temperature and humidity requirements of 50-deg F, +/- 2-deg F, and 30% RH, +/- 2% RH.  These environmental conditions extend the life of the stored volumes by up to (4) times their expected life at standard room conditions.  

Additional considerations in this phase were the addition of a smoke removal system to Phases II and III, the addition of an emergency generator, and considerations of modular shelving in lieu of fixed shelving to increase the storage density.  Henneman Engineering was responsible for Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing engineering on this project.  Henneman authored the Bridging Documents necessary for the Illinois CDB to issue this project Design-Build; we were proud to be a part of CDB’s second design-build project.