The University of Aberdeen is a public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen and Chancellor of Scotland, petitioned Pope Alexander VI on behalf of James IV, King of Scots to establish King’s College, making it one of Scotland’s four ancient universities and the fifth-oldest university in the English-speaking world.
The University of Aberdeen was embarking on the construction of a state-of-the-art 16,000 sqm new library. This was to be a contemporary and original structure that would not only be a practical resource for the university, but also a showcase for their institution.
For its creation they enlisted the expertise of cutting-edge architects, Schmidt Hammer Lassen, who developed a visually stunning and practical design with eight floors and a beautiful spiraling atrium. The building was not only aesthetically pleasing but practical, with capacity to accommodate over 700,000 visitors annually.
To complement the unique design the architects approached Rackline to provide a range of library shelving and storage solutions that both complemented the building and its function, and enhanced the overall building aesthetics.
The library had two distinct product requirements, aligning with the design conceived by both the collections staff and the architects. Modern collections, including: arts, humanities, and social and physical sciences, needed accessibility for both students and the local community. For these Rackline’s teams proposed our Proform static shelving system, which provided flush apertures to protect books and documents. The installation team fitted 1,834 bays and 12,270 linear meters of Proform library shelving, echoing the spiral atrium design of the first seven floors.
The second stage involved secure and safe storage for special collections on the lower ground floor. To address this, Rackline’s team again proposed Proform, a high-density library shelving solution on Multitrak mobile bases, to accommodate the sheer volume of rare books and manuscripts. The design team worked with the libraries archivists to create an ergonomic layout, ensuring optimised access for specialists. The entire collection was successfully housed, on the robust library shelving solutions, with provisions for future expansion.
The library shelving solutions designed, manufactured and installed by Rackline complement the library and are sympathetic to its unusual architecture. These solutions provide robust and secure storage for the library’s huge inventory, keeping it both safe yet easily accessible when required. The solutions not only meet the capacity needs of the current library inventory but leave space for expansion well into the future.
“We were a little in awe when Aberdeen University approached us for their storage needs in their new building. The design by Schmidt Hammer Lassen was unlike anything we had seen before, and our designers worked tirelessly for six months. Both the library and our team were thrilled with how the final storage complemented the new building.” – Fergus Doherty, Rackline Managing Director.
To find out more about our solutions for libraries, see our dedicated page. If you’re searching for the perfect storage solutions for your library, or anywhere else then get in touch.
