When Raymond Lui, chief structural engineer for Public Works, visits his most challenging project, he watches the windows.
In an effort to keep the Mission Branch Library’s historic plaster on its ceiling and walls intact during the building’s Public Works-led renovation, the old windows act as a canary in the coalmine of sorts.
“We don’t want to see cracks in the plaster,” said Lui, who is the structural engineer of record on the project. “One of the indicators to me, if I’m just walking down the street, is all the glass panes are in great shape. So nothing has been distressed, there’s no cracks. That already gives me a level of confidence” that everything is going according to plan.
The Public Works-led project, delivered on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library, will help restore the beloved neighborhood branch – more than 100 years old – to some of its original glory while adding much-needed upgrades to transform the facility into a less cramped, more accommodating and more climate-resilient space for staff and patrons.
Crews have to be careful as they dig into the soil to carve out the basement, gut the inside of the structure and work on the rebar that crisscrosses the facility, which sits at the corner of 24th and Bartlett streets.
Workers also have an alarm that is triggered by any significant movement or vibrations to help safeguard the precious plaster.
In his 14 years with the department, the complex renovation of the historic building – one of seven Carnegie libraries in San Francisco – is the most complicated undertaking Lui has ever worked on.
“We’re moving parts of it, adding more parts to it, we’re going underneath it,” said Lui, as heavy machinery hummed nearby. “So there’s a lot of complications in this thing."
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