Berkeley School of Law Library – Ratcliff – US

Architect: Ratcliff 
Location: Berkeley, California, US
Landscape:  Hargreaves Associates, Alan Lewis 
Principal-in-Charge: Joseph A. Nicola
Lead Designer: Crodd Chin
Project Architect/Designer: Ben Levi
Project Designers: Peter Soldat, Tony Keung, Greg Hildebrand
Project Design Team: Kevin Thornton, Pikesh Desai, Chris Young, Bill Winkleman, Bob Wong, Al Socias, Henry Chaikin, Nina Pakanant, Susan Kanno, Mike Matson and Bill Blessing
Project Interior Design Team: Bonnie Thomas, Marianne Schumacher, Maria Holder
Structural: Rutherford & Chekene, Dominic Campi
Photographer: Tim Griffith, Ethan Kaplan, Steve Whittaker

Initially intended to increase capacity for the Law Library collection, the Berkeley Law project evolved into a major, phased, adaptive reuse and addition that addressed numerous deficiencies in the existing complex. The first major renovation project consolidated 12,000-square-feet of student groups and various law journal spaces into one unifying area — the lower west level — and converted the former student space into greatly needed new faculty offices. The new South Addition houses highly efficient library stack space and a combination of reading rooms, seminar spaces, computer labs, library staff offices, and collection services in two light-filled underground levels. Large skylights and open stairways serve as an inviting environment in the above-grade level, complete with a large classroom flanked by a café for interactive study and social gathering. A second level roof-deck garden above the addition provides plenty of outdoor seating with a connection to the library’s main reading room and a footbridge to the Steinhart Courtyard. The new addition is designed to achieve LEED® Gold certification.