New Pennsylvania State Archives building holds documents dating back to 1680

Work was recently completed on a new Pennsylvania State Archives building in Harrisburg, Penn. The HGA-designed, 146,000-sf facility offers numerous amenities, including computers, scanners, printers, a kitchenette with seating, lockers, a meeting room, a classroom, an interactive video wall, gallery, and all-gender restrooms. The features are all intended to provide a welcoming and comfortable environment for visitors.

The state’s Division of Public Records was created in 1903. It became recognized as its own bureau upon joining the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) in 1945. By 2000, its first permanent home in the Capitol Complex was reaching capacity and its low floor-to-floor height, together with a small floor plate, affected operational efficiency and would not allow for necessary environmental upgrades.

The goal was to find a site close to the Capitol Complex, and an urban parcel in a neglected neighborhood was selected. Built amid the few remaining rental row houses, light commercial structures, and the city’s rail yards, the facility is intended to have a positive impact on the neighborhood and city.

The building’s features include:

Collections space: A glazed-brick volume and high-thermal-mass concrete structure forms the body of the building, housing acid-free boxes and flat-file maps on high density shelving. The rectangular volume is windowless, well insulated, and projective. Total storage on three floors is 47,000 sf with space for growth, and 12-foot-tall high-density shelving makes the collections rooms highly efficient. Archives’ storage rooms are tightly controlled to keep out all daylight

Mechanical systems: A metal-clad mechanical bay links efficient HVAC systems to archive rooms on each floor, providing tightly modulated temperature and humidity to each kind of environment and material—paper, print photography, or film.

Public space: A double-height glass and aluminum pavilion set in a public garden with native plants allows for individual and group research with a sense of openness and accessibility.

The facility was designed to provide a climate resilient, durable, 50-to 100-year space to protect the archives while enduring extreme conditions. Areas of concern included railroad accidents, extreme or intense precipitation, theft, pests, moisture/mold growth, extreme wind, excessive snow load, and power failure.

To address the railroad yard disaster concern, a sensor was specified for the mechanical louvers that would shut down air intake if any harmful chemicals at elevated concentrations are detected. To mitigate extreme precipitation, no roof drains or roof penetrations are located over the archive rooms. Rain landing on the low slope roof runs down to roof drains over the mechanical rooms.

To prevent theft, security from the facility includes cameras and restricted access to the original documents room where staff members monitor visitors’ movements. Staff entry and exit paths with security systems are choreographed as well, for additional security.

HGA negotiated with electric utility Pennsylvania Power and Light to get two points of electricity service, one primary and one backup, each arriving from a different buried feeder line path to the site. In addition, the facility includes a standby generator with 48 hours of fuel capacity.

Ash wood was used for all interior building woodwork. Now disappearing across the country due to the Emerald Ash Borer, the wood wall panels will one day illustrate the beauty of the once-common native tree. Additionally, the site’s original granite street curbs were used as planter curbs and boulders found buried there were used as landscaping features in the public garden. The stone for the exterior pavers, interior floors, and the front desk was quarried in the Appalachian Mountains, and the glazed brick was manufactured in Pennsylvania.

On the project team:
Owner and/or developer: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Design architect: HGA and Vitetta
MEP engineer: HGA
Structural engineer: HGA
General contractor/construction manager: Mascaro Construction