Knowledge, with a cup of coffee

When all of the construction dust finally settles in 2008 on the University of Nevada campus in Reno, two new structures will alter much of the landscape at the north end of the Virginia Street campus.

One will be the new 165,000-square-foot student union.

The other will be an imposing five-story, 295,000-square-foot library but it won't be your mother or father's kind of library.

The library will be known as the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center and will include resources and student support services not currently available in the Getchell Library.

It will also contain the latest computer training laboratories,multimedia services and collections, multiple reading and conference rooms, an art museum, a Center for Basque Studies, and an auditorium.

There will also be a coffee shop in the library with pass through windows.

Hershenow & Klippenstein, a Reno-based architectural firm, has been awarded the contract to design the structure.

Partner Jeff Klippenstein says the firm is very excited about this project.

"We had two mandates from the school," he says."One was to give a nod to the historical architecture on campus.

That means the exterior will be brick.

So we have designed some of the classical elements into this building while, at the same time, have given it a look that says it is moving into the future."

While the construction budget is estimated at $67 million, the total project with all the "bells and whistles" is estimated at $105 million.

It will feature state-of-the-art digital access to more than 20,000 scholarly journals.

The library will be the largest public works project in the history of Nevada.

The new student union more than double in size to the current Jot Travis Student Union with an expansive bookstore, a movie theater and a 1,200 capacity special events room, food cafes and retail shops is expected to open in 2007, the library in 2008.

Structurally, the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center will be arranged around a four-story atrium, Klippenstein says.

The second through fifth floors will be arranged in a circular fashion.

"Visitors will always be able to sense where they are in this building," he says."And the plan is to have computers alongside the railings of the atrium as well as elsewhere in the building."

The firm has already done several other libraries in the state including Western Nevada Community College.Klippenstein said Steve Zink, dean of the University of Nevada's library who is also vice president of information technology," is the driving force for this project." He says the firm began the project in 2000.

"With key Nevada staff personnel,we toured some other universities to look at their new libraries,"Klippenstein says."We took a lot of photos, saw some things we thought might fit in here and some that clearly would not.We visited George Mason University, the University of Kentucky and one in Michigan.We also visited the new library at UNLV in Las Vegas."

Asked about the coffee shop designed into the new structure, Klippenstein says the old days in which a library didn't allowed food or drink are gone.

"In the current Getchell library, students routinely have pizza delivered to them while they are studying," he says."The library staff there is very savvy about the needs of today's students."

The project was kicked off with a $10 million donation by former International Game Technology chairman Chuck Mathewson, his wife Ann, and IGT, the world's largest manufacturers of gaming machines.

The State of Nevada and the university are also contributing significant monies for the project.

Mathewson once told the Las Vegas Sun that he donated the money because he liked the concept of a knowledge center."I happen to like libraries," he said,"and calling this new facility the Knowledge Center really pushed a button for me." IGT is also a significant employer of University of Nevada graduates.

Hershenow and Klippenstein did not engage in a bidding process to get the contract award.

"There was no bidding process," Klippenstein says."Any publicly funded project in Nevada is done through a request for qualification instead of a request for proposal.

They want to know who we are and what we've done.

Typically, you might find 15 firms submitting RFQs and from that group, it would be narrowed down to three or four.

Then the interview process begins and from that one firm is selected."

The firm has been in existence since 1994.

Jeff Klippenstein and Max Hershenow met in 1969 when both were playing baseball in Reno's Babe Ruth League.

Hershenow went off to Arizona to study architecture while Klippenstein traveled north to Eugene and the University of Oregon to get his architectural degree.

Both returned to Reno and worked together for other firms, but it wasn't until 1994 that the pair decided to form their own firm.

"Our first office,"Klippenstein says,"was, ironically, on Grant Drive in the basement of a building that looked out on the baseball field (Moana Field) where we first met."