Corporation Passes Plans For New Engineering Lab

The Corporation has approved plans for a $900,000 engineering lab designed by Minoru Yamaski. Construction, on a site on Oxford St. across from Lesley College, will probably start this summer, and may be completed by the summer of 1962.

The Corporation has postponed approval of the project since last winter while awaiting assurance that the new building would not interfere with President Pusey's "high rise" program, which requires that no new small building prevent the eventual construction of a multi-story structure.

Slightly more than half of the money for the project will be supplied by the University. The rest will be supplied by a grant from the National Science Foundation and from other sources outside the University.

Gas Dynamics and Plasma

Most of the research in the new laboratory will be part of government projects Study of combustion, high temperature gases, and plasma jets will be directed by Arthur E. Bryson, Jr., associate professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Howard W. Emmons '37, Gordon McKay Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Research in high temperature gas dynamics is an essential part of study of satellite re-entry.

This will be the first Harvard building designed by Yamaski, a Detroit architect who will also design the new Behavioral Science building.

Willenbrock Enthusiastic

Frederick K. Willenbrock, associate Dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, said he is extremely enthusiastic about the structure, which he called "highly original in design."

Functional in design, the laboratory is unique in many respects. Since the cost of installing flexible services like gas and water often constitutes as much as 40 per cent of the cost of a laboratory, Yamaski created a new conveyance system for the building.

Gas, water, drainage, and electricity will be supplied to each of the laboratories by alternating hollow U-shaped beams.

The white beams will be extended through the brick exterior, creating a functional design. Since the building is air-conditioned throughout, only one-fourth of it will be window.