DBIA NE Honors Five College Library Annex Team With Bronze Award

Five College Library Annex

Hatfield, MA – At its recent annual meeting and design-build awards event, held in Framingham, the Design Build Institute of America (DBIA) New England Region, presented the Five College Library Annex project team with a Bronze Award in the Building Construction category.

The winning collaboration included Five Colleges, Inc. (FCI), CSL Consulting, Cutler Associates, Cutler Design, RDK Engineers, TFMoran, and Berkshire Design.

Prior to construction, Cutler, an East Coast design-build and construction management firm, worked with FCI and CSL on site selection. The design-build team then spent 12 months building the new 35,000sf climate-controlled library storage facility in Hatfield. The design provides for 9,000sf of receiving, materials processing, meeting, and office space, with the remaining 26,000sf storage space, outfitted with 24-foot high shelving units that have a capacity to house 2.5 million volumes.

Interior of the specialized racking system that will house all of the volumes.

The new state-of-the-art facility serves students and faculty members from Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst — collectively known as the Five College Consortium.

The success of the project, having maximized the value and efficiencies of taking a design-build approach, is proven by the numbers. “Given the complexities of the site prep work and sophisticated building systems necessary for achieving the strict control of temperature and humidity, we are thrilled that the facility was completed on schedule and well under budget,” said Neal Abraham, executive director of Five Colleges, Inc.