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Library and Archives Canada - New Preservation Storage Facility

Helping build the world's largest automated archiving center

  • LEED

    Gold Certified

  • 29.3%

    Energy Reduction

  • 21.3K

    Cubic Metres

  • Gatineau, Quebec

    Gatineau, Quebec

Preserving Canadian heritage artifacts in an eco-friendly building

Seeking more space to archive and preserve its valuable heritage archive, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) set out to build a new facility, adjacent to its existing Preservation Centre. They reached out to our team to provide buildings engineering, physical security, and environmental services.

We provided engineering support to LAC in the design of an eco-friendly facility—the first special purpose federal facility built to meet the net zero requirements of Canada’s Greening Government Strategy. We designed a sophisticated temperature and humidity control system to maintain the correct ambient temperature at all times to preserve the integrity of the collection. Additionally, we developed a fire protection system to reduce the risk of accidental fire outbreak and prevent water from entering the vaults during such an event.

Featuring six climate-controlled vaults and LEED v4 Gold certified, the facility features an automated archive storage and retrieval system and will help preserve a heritage artifact collection of 22 million books and 425,000 works of art for the next 500 years.

At a Glance

Offices
Client
  • Library and Archives Canada
  • PCL Construction
  • Propriétés Plenary Gatineau
Architect
B+H Architectes / Lapalme Rheault architectes & associés

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