R G Carter has successfully handed over the new University of Cambridge Library Storage facility which opened for occupation on Tuesday 13th February.
Located on Lancaster Way Business Park in Ely, the purpose-built storage unit is one of only seven such facilities. This bespoke archiving facility has been designed to achieve a highly insulated, airtight building, with an air leakage rate of no more than 1.0 m³/hr/m²@ 50pa. Indeed, the building performed even better during the rigorous testing and achieved 0.95 m³/hr/m²@ 50pa: this has been due to very careful detailing and excellent quality control on site.
A key factor in the design of the building was to achieve a consistent internal environment in respect of temperature and humidity; this is set at a range of 13 – 20°C and 35 – 60 % RH. The environment has to be maintained within these parameters at all times and for a minimum of 24 hours in the event of plant failure. During testing and proving, the building (due to its high level of air tightness) has performed even better than expected maintaining the required environmental conditions for 72 hours.
The building consists of bespoke storage racking with 64,000 shelves set within 23 rows of racking which are 11.4m high and will be served by the clients MHE equipment and document management system.
