About the Client
Lambeth Palace Library and Archives (LPLA) was founded in 1610 and is the National Library & Archive of the Church of England.
In 2020 a brand-new facility was completed in Lambeth, designed specifically to house it’s valuable collection of artifacts. The new library is a sensitive addition to the site of the Grade I listed Palace, and was the first new building built on the site in 185 years.
Requirement
With their collections spread across two sites including a warehouse in Bermondsey and cramped accommodation within thirteen separate rooms within Lambeth Palace, the team at LPLA knew that something needed to be done.
The collections were outgrowing their existing provision and there was risk of damage to the valuable inventory. When the church collection was catalogued it was discovered that a significant growth in space was required. This resulted in the decision to develop a new building and storage facility on the site.
It was calculated that to house its collection the new building would need to accommodate over 20,000 linear metres (or nearly 12.5 miles) of new shelving over approximately. 5,400 square metres of floor space.
At the core of the requirements was the care of the internationally important collection it held. This was at the heart of the design of both the new building and the storage within it. Any new building needed to offer storage that was both humidity and temperature controlled, and have state of the art fire suppression systems.
The Solution
Following discussions with the architects Wright & Wright, a new building was designed. Collection storage space was assigned over six separate floors of the new archive facility. As this new facility is located on one of London’s many flood plains the collection storage areas were allocated space above the ground floor, on the second floor upwards.
The Architects Wright and Wright issued a new tender, and following a rigorous process Rackline were awarded the contract to design, manufacture and install the archive storage. The tender was awarded based on the demonstrated quality of the Rackline product and the company’s history in the design, manufacture and installation of these specialist archive storage solutions.
Rackline’s Managing Director Fergus Doherty worked closely with the architects to ensure that the diverse needs of the items within the church’s collection were met, both in terms of storage conditions and capacity. Rackline’s solutions included its Multitrak mobile carriages which provided robust, high density storage that could be manufactured in the diverse carriage lengths required.
Floor tracks for this mobile shelving were set directly into the concrete floor screed itself, in a joint operation that was co-ordinated between Rackline’s Technical Director Andy Reed, and the main contractor Knight Harwood. Andy worked closely with the main contracting team throughout the entire installation period and beyond, ensuring a smooth client handover. The final mobile and static shelving installation comprised of over 22,000 linear metres (or 13.67 miles) of storage space, well exceeding the 20,000 target requirement.
Talk to us
If you work within Museums, Heritage or Archives and you’re looking for the perfect storage solutions to keep your collection safe, then get in touch on the form below. Rackline has been manufacturing and installing high-density storage since 1984, and our skilled teams can develop the perfect solutions for your needs and the needs of your items.