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UCSD Biomedical Library Renovation & Expansion

La Jolla, California

The newly expanded and renovated $17 million UCSD Biomedical Library doubles the size of the existing library to 74,000 square feet (including 41,000 square feet of addition) and supports the research, teaching, and patient-care programs of the UCSD School of Medicine, Healthcare, Division of Biological Sciences, and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy, in addition to serving unaffiliated area physicians and biotechnology firms. Visited by more than 200,000 people each year, this facility is the only research-level biomedical collection located in San Diego and Imperial Counties.

Our collaboration with Pfeiffer Partners included lighting design for a 24-hour study facility for graduate and professional students, library classrooms, group study rooms, a presentation practice room, and an “information commons” consisting of 80 networked computers and training facilities. Design challenges included retrofitting and upgrading the main reading room luminaires with more efficient and modern technologies, as well as the successful “marrying” of the existing 1969 architecture with the new contemporary addition.