Moelis Family Grand Reading Room | University of Pennsylvania

Keast & Hood provided structural design for interior renovations to create a new, grand reading room to support University of Pennsylvania student’s needs. The project consists of alterations to the University’s Van Pelt Dietrich Library Center (VPDLC) to create a grand reading room at the east end of the first floor of the original Van Pelt wing of the building.

The Van Pelt Wing of the Library Center is an existing cast-in-place concrete building that was originally constructed in 1962. The area proposed for the new reading room renovation extends two bays east-west and three bays north-south from the southeast corner of the floor plate. Prior to the renovation, the area was used to house the library’s periodicals collection.
The objective of the project was to create an iconic reading room comparable to the reading room in the nearby Fisher Fine Arts Library that provides a quiet study space/reading room for students, faculty and researchers.

The scope of structural work included structural evaluation, design and documentation for slab penetrations for MEP systems, structural support for new floor-to-floor partitions to separate the reading room from the surrounding spaces on the first and second (mezzanine) levels and new door framings, and an intricate ceiling design.