Buildings Engineering a Better Canada Award and Award of Excellence
LAC Preservation Storage Facility Stantec
The first of its kind The public-private partnership (P3) project dubbed ‘Gatineau 2’ involved constructing a new building, linking six controlled-environment vaults to the existing LAC preservation centre. These spaces, which can accommodate 21,328 m3 of archival documents, are operated with an automated storage and retrieval sys16
CANADIAN CONSULTING ENGINEER
tem, making it the largest automated records centre in the world. Never before had a controlled museum environment been designed for a volume of space of such magnitude. Gatineau 2 was also the first automated records centre in North America to be designed to a net-zero carbon standard. Stantec
was responsible for all of the engineering. To optimally preserve documents and microfilms, the ambient temperature should remain between 6 and 10 C, with relative humidity of 30% to 40%. With motorized cranes producing heat and the risk of air stratification, collaboration was September/October 2023
PHOTOS BY ROY G RO GA N, COU RT E SY STA N T EC A N D L AC.
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ibrary and Archives Canada (LAC), a federal government institution, sought a sophisticated and ecologically responsible building to increase its storage capacity in controlled ambient conditions. Stantec, as project engineer, was tasked with creating these ideal conditions to preserve Canadian heritage assets for the next 500 years, redefining archival standards. The firm also met the government’s expectations for sustainable development, with the first federal special-purpose building to meet the requirements of the Greening Government Strategy. “This building has set a benchmark for archival preservation facilities worldwide,” says Brian Budden, president and CEO of Plenary Americas, which led the project. Indeed, project director Nathalie Éthier says the high quality of the infrastructure is already attracting attention from around the globe, to the point where contact has been established with such countries as France, South Korea, Australia and the U.S.
