The Setting of the Building
The site selected, at the southern end of the main campus, on McCormick
Road, affords a pleasing outlook on all sides and secures an unencumbered
abundance of light and air for the working areas. The building is designed to
accommodate comfortably a student body of 300, normally distributed in the
several years of the course, and it is expected that the matriculation in engineering
will be restricted to that approximate number, in the belief that it
affords an ideal group for the University to train in its engineering school.
The building is in a sense three interconnected structures arranged in
U-fashion, with a central grass court 150 feet square, closed at the top of
the U by an arcaded walk which furnishes ready access between the two
wings. The main unit of the group consists of basement and two upper
floors; the western wing is of one-story, and the eastern wing of two-story,
construction, each unit being approximately 300 feet long.
The entire building is erected upon reinforced concrete foundations with
the walls of over-size brick of a color to match other campus structures, and is
of a simple, dignified design most pleasing from every aspect. Cast stone
bands, with the same material as a part of door and window trim, serve to
relieve the severity of extensive uninterrupted areas of brick. The arcade
motif is used throughout the construction rather than the colonnade, which is
a feature of many of the earlier buildings on the campus. Reinforced concrete
floors are the rule; partitions of brick, tile or gypsum block predominate, and
the slate roof is supported on structural steel trusses.
Floors vary from those of concrete in most of the laboratories, through
terrazzo in corridors, to mastic-covered concrete in offices, classrooms and
library. The classrooms and offices have plastered walls and sound-absorbing
ceiling surfaces, while the walls of most of the laboratories and drawing
rooms are of painted brick. Basement corridors and lavatories are finished
in general with glazed tile walls to a height of about 6 feet. Throughout the
building generous window allotment has been secured to insure ample natural
light and ventilation.
