Strang designed the vertical expansion of six floors over an existing first floor and basement of the Memorial Library. Because the site- located in a densely populated area with significant pedestrian traffic - was extremely constricted, our design employed limited staging. The library remained fully occupied and operational during construction and was completed ahead of schedule.

The addition contains two floors of compact, movable shelving to house more than 1,700,000 books. We incorporated structural transitioning to accommodate the 250 pounds per square foot in floor loading required to support the shelving. The Rare Books Complex includes reading areas, vaults, display space, general library stacks, and administrative offices.

Strang also renovated an existing study hall into a distance learning auditorium and smaller study hall. The new 75-seat auditorium provides a user-friendly and spacious, yet intimate-feeling lecture space. This lecture hall features a variety of state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment for interactive classroom activities and has excellent acoustics. The auditorium also is used as conference space for community groups associated with the library.

The integrated audiovisual technology includes two ceiling fixed mounted video projectors, two slide projectors, a digital video disk (DVD)/laser disk player, a video camera for recording the instructor, a fixed computer, laptop hook-up, a VCR, and an audio cassette recorder. Each seat is wired for power and data connections. The design also accommodates future satellite uplink capability.