COLLEGE OF DESIGN

A building to house the three departments primarily concerned with design had been talked about for several years, but activity leading to the development of a building program did not begin in earnest until February 1974. At that time the three departments involved were Architecture (College of Engineering), Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning (College of Agriculture) and Applied Art (College of Home Economics).

Many hours were consumed in arriving at an acceptable allocation of assignable space for each department and for the building as a whole. The requests for space far exceeded the available footage within the budget limits of the project. Selection of the site for the location of the building also resulted in objections and strong arguments over a period of months. All problems were finally resolved and the building program was completed and furnished to the architect in October 1974. Preliminary plans were approved by the Board in May 1975.

In order to get construction started as early as possible a separate contract for placement of the foundation caissons was awarded in November 1975, before final documents for the building were completed. When contracts for the superstructure were awarded in March 1976 the foundations were complete and ready to accept the building construction, thus enabling an earlier start than would otherwise have been possible. The building was ready for occupancy in September 1978. In the meantime the departments had become units in the new College of Design, and some changes had been made in the earlier plans to provide additional administrative space.