Berkeley, CA
The new 68,000 sf library houses Japanese, Chinese and Korean collections that rank among the top four academic library collections in the nation. The award-winning library is a $46 million four-story concrete building surfaced with bronze decorative screens that weigh 1 ton each. Structural challenges included designing flat plate concrete floors and strip beams to the stringent gravity deflection required of library stacks. Exterior entrance stairs, the entrance bridge, and retaining walls were designed with the same attention to every detail as was the building interior, and the structure was incorporated into the architectural fabric of the building. R+C provided structural engineering services to the world-renowned architect-led team.
Building façade is rough concrete clad in stone from China
Bronze screens weigh one ton each
Leavening peerless structural engineering skill with humor, philosophy, people skills and, above all, a consummate understanding of San Francisco's permitting process, [Alan] saw this project through.
