BNIM is working with the University of California, Berkeley to create a project program for the initial phase of a full renovation of the first through third floors of Moffitt Library. UC Berkeley’s 32 constituent and affiliated libraries together make Moffitt the fourth largest university library by number of volumes in the United States — surpassed only by the libraries of Harvard, Yale, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Opened in 1970 as a cutting-edge library for undergraduates, Moffitt Library rejected the neoclassical tradition of most campus buildings. At five-stories and constructed of cast-in-place concrete, Moffitt Library is uniquely situated within memorial glade, partially below grade with building entry points at the third floor. In 1994, Gardner Stacks, a four-story underground addition connecting Moffitt to the historic Doe Library was completed, where more than 2.5 million volumes are stored within four acres of space.

In 2016, the University began re-envisioning Moffitt Library with the renovation of floors 4 and 5, comprising approximately 38,000 SF. This initiated the transformation of the library to interactive and dynamic modes of learning and research. A stated goal of the University is that the renovation of floors 1, 2, and 3, comprising of approximately 100,000 SF, should “both capitalize and improve on the foundations presented by the work on floors 4 and 5 toward the creation of a flexible yet culturally and aesthetically harmonized facility.” Through our current work on major library renovations at both Georgia Tech and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, we are seeing a reinvention of the library system that focuses on the revitalization of historic structures to reposition libraries as contemporary centers for discovery and innovation.

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