Early Schemes
Design of the new building began in earnest in the fall of 1958. The design team figured they proposed at least twenty schemes—not all developed—over the two years allotted for design. The advisory committee considered H, I, and L-shaped plans, but Wurster and others remained attached to the idea of a courtyard plan. The old Architecture building, the “Ark” (now Northgate Hall), had a cherished brick-paved courtyard where all the department’s ceremonial and social events took place. A courtyard in the new building could express continuity with the old setting, and act as the symbolic heart of the new college building as it had in the old. Vernon DeMars eventually developed a scheme around September 1959 that included a generous courtyard with variously scaled blocks enclosing it. The plan won favor, but it exceeded the site boundaries and had to be adjusted.
One of the key spatial decisions for the design team was the disposition of the departmental offices. The formation of the College of Environmental Design was a conscious effort to bring together its constituent departments, and the grouping together of offices would express this intention, but the departments also wanted faculty offices and support spaces nearby to departmental-level administration. Perceived dominance was another concern. One plan had the smaller departments (Planning, Landscape, and Decorative Arts) lined up facing the Architecture office, which was unacceptable to the smaller departments, who felt this represented an imbalance of departmental status.
Early schemes also demonstrate the design team’s concern with movement through the building, and represent the differing philosophies of the three designers. For Vernon DeMars, the idea of procession was fundamental. He felt the building needed an imposing entrance hall with a landscaped atrium and grand stairway. Esherick and Olsen thought DeMars’ view was far too romantic and picturesque. As DeMars later put it, “The more I tried to push these ideas, the meaner the stair hall and atrium got.” Instead Esherick and Olsen took a much more rational and concrete attitude toward getting people through the campus. A vestige of this disagreement is the light well at the top of the main stair (now an art installation called Bill’s Beach). It was not what DeMars originally imagined, but it did achieve his aim to bring light to the library entrance and interior offices.
