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Scott Brownrigg has completed a £26m book storage facility for the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries, which is officially opening today. 

The 11,700 sq m facility, based in South Marston, Swindon, provides long-term storage for up to eight million volumes from the Libraries’ collections. 

Scott Brownrigg has worked alongside Oxford University Estates Directorate and specialist racking and logistics consultants Total Logistics as well as mechanical and electrical engineers, fire and structural consultants.

The building has an extended design life of 100 years and a strategy has already been developed to allow the building to be extended in years to come, with minimum disruption to operations.

The 12m high 10,000 sq m (108,000 sq ft) main storage chamber is divided into four fire-rated compartments and has a bespoke BRE tested sprinkler system integrated into the shelving system. 

The cladding is composed of bespoke four-hour fire-rated insulated concrete sandwich panels which provide high thermal mass to regulate the internal temperature and humidity.

The building, which has achieved an on-site air test result of 1.6m3/h/m2, will allow the refurbishment of the New Bodleian Library in Oxford to proceed. The transfer of selected collections from some of the Bodleian’s book stacks in Oxford will start in November 2010.