YALE EMBARKS ON BIG BUILDING PROGRAM

Building at Yale is keeping pace with educational development in general. The degree of completion ranges all the way from the new Sterling Library, which is now nearly finished, to plans for the housing of about 1,000 undergraduates who are at present but poorly accommodated. While not entering upon the so-called House Plan, as developed at Harvard, still Yale in its new Human Welfare Group is starting an educational and social experiment which may prove to have just as wide reaching effects.

Much building is in evidence in the neighborhood of the Yale School of Medicine and the New Haven Hospital as a result of the progress made in the development of the Human Welfare Group. The financial program of the group at its formation in February called for $15, 500,000, of which $6,000,000 remains to be obtained. One of the units, the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Pavilion for Children, will be ready for occupancy about Christmas time. Construction on the $2,000,000 laboratory and clinic adjoining it on the hospital grounds has been started. Plans for the Institute of Human Relations building, to cost $2,000,000 have been completed, and it is hoped the building will be ready in about fifteen months. Among the unique architectural features of the Institute, which is to be a center for research in biology and sociology at Yale, are a residential unit for the study of child development, a residential and treatment unit for the study of mental efficiency and mental diseases, modern laboratories for psychological investigations, and facilities for research in sociology, including social psychology, economics, and government.

The erection of the Institute building leaves four units still to be obtained for the completion of the physical plant of the Human Welfare Group. These are the Isolation Pavilion, the Women's Pavilion, the Surgical Pavilion, and the Semi-private Pavilion Extension.

The new Sterling Library, now nearing completion, is done in a style as near to modern Gothic as possible without departing from sound tradition, a style combining grace and strength. To break the monotony of large stretches of wall, the stone used in decoration is varied from place to place.

Perhaps the most interesting feature to the librarian is the bookstack. The lower stack is one unit of self-supporting steel structure from top to bottom. It is composed of vertical steel columns joined by horizontal beams which serve the purpose of supporting both the columns and the marble floors. The columns support the shelves, which are easily adjustable to hold different sizes of books.

The advantages derived from this type of stack are two-fold: being self-supporting, it does not require heavy construction and permits the maximum possible cubic content of the library to be used for book storage. Also, being flexible, it eliminates waste space.

A number of mechanical devices have been installed to make the library more efficient. In rooms containing rare books and fine bindings, the humidity and temperature will be controlled to prevent deterioration; in other portions of the building there will be forced ventilation. To expedite the delivery of books to readers, pneumatic tubes and conveyors have been installed.

The capacity of the library on completion will be 3,000,000 volumes, and plans have already been drawn to provide for another million in the future. There will be seating capacity for a thousand readers at a time.

The entire interior structure of the building is arranged with the greatest possible forethought so that coming generations will not find themselves hampered by architectural features built with only the present in mind. To this end the partitions between seminars, lecture halls, and so forth have been built with the understanding that they may some day be rearranged. Even the reading tables are built in sections so that they can be lengthened or changed.

Thanks to the generous bequest of John W. Sterling Y'64 and the helpful co-operation of his trustees, we have been enabled to begin the first of the new buildings to supply dormitory needs for Freshmen. This is the structure about to be erected on Elm St. between York and High. It will be impossible to complete the central portion until the new gymnasium is erected and we can take down the old one. This, we trust may be possible in the very near future.

Owing to the kindness of Mr. Frederick W. Vanderbilt Y '76S we have acquire all the property on the block on which stands Byers Hall and the Vanderbilt dormitories, and we hope it will be possible in the near future to complete this quadrangle as earlier planned, to the great relief of the Scientific School.

We require nearly 1,000 additional rooms for undergraduates in order to supply them with proper housing and we should need to proceed in this matter even though we did not enter upon the so-called House Plan.

Three million dollars will be spent the erection of the new Law School building on Davenport Avenue. According to the description of the structures file with the city building inspector, the southerly side of the group will be used for school purposes, while the Northeast side of the section will be used for dormitories. There are to be a total of 26 rooms in the dormitories.