A joint project between East Sussex County Council, Brighton & Hove City Council and the University of Sussex, The Keep is located at Woollards Field, near Falmer. The scheme has been designed by UK-based WS Atkins.
The scheme will span 52,000 square feet, and will be spread over two, three-storey blocks. The facility will accommodate storage, office and public access space. It will also feature a repository or strong room.
The strong room will comply with specific storage and preservation needs and will meet the British Standard recommendations for the storage and exhibition of archival documents. The strong room will store the historical records and archives of East Sussex and Brighton & Hove, and the special collections of the University of Sussex, including the Mass Observation Archive.
The Keep is also expected to include the library and headquarters of the Sussex Family History Group. The other spaces of the building will consist of a reception, display and sales area as well as education and learning room and refreshment space.
The building will be a light coloured facility with brick facade. Construction of The KEEP lays emphasis on heavyweight masonry with an insulated ventilated cavity to ensure robustness, high security, air tightness and an ability to retain internal environmental conditions.
To further increase the protection credentials of the building, it will feature a special roof, which will be developed using heavyweight concrete construction method. The roof will also feature a second shallow standing seam pitched over-roof.
The Keep is being aspired to achieve BREEAM Excellent rating and is scheduled to open by the end of 2013.
