A Plan Approved

Following approval of the building concept in September 1960, the architects continued to develop key elements such as furniture layouts, interior finishes, and mechanical systems in a way that further emphasized their rationalist ideals. A few months earlier when Donald Hardison left the project, design production had moved into Esherick’s office, and Esherick began to exert more influence on design decisions.

Esherick especially insisted on industrial details such as bulky galvanized iron handrails at the main stairways and minimal finishes elsewhere. Indeed, Esherick apparently aimed to ban all wood finishes from the building interior, but this prohibition was reversed when Wurster intervened. The redwood walls of the “Ark” (the old Architecture building) had long served as pin-up space for review of student work, and Wurster requested something like it in the new building. The compromise was the Douglas Fir plywood that now covers most walls within the building.

This rational approach also applied to the custom furniture for the building. The drafting desks designed by Olsen determined the building’s basic spatial module. The team worked out a scheme that derived a standard module from the desk size and used multiples of that module to establish the structural column spacing for the building.

Although one would assume that a building’s mechanical system would be the most likely candidate for rational treatment, the Environmental Design Building’s arrangement of exposed ducts and pipes actually achieved philosophical, aesthetic, as well as pragmatic ends. Inspired in part by Louis Kahn’s philosophy of exposed systems, Esherick was determined that the systems would not be concealed. He intervened into the mechanical engineering team’s layout of the project, adjusting as need to achieve a “neat and orderly” arrangement of ductwork.

The choice to leave the systems exposed had the added benefit of elevated ceiling heights, easier maintenance, and an opportunity for students to see “how a building works.” That said, members of the design team also recalled that Esherick was enamored with mechanical elements like the shop’s exterior dust extractor and treated them like architectural sculpture and a bold statement of the building’s industrial aesthetic.