February 4, 1958

Dr. J, A, Jenkins
Depertuent of Genoties
University of California
Berkeley 4, California

Dear Jim:

To youre et the 50th, The argumante sbout Mulford fast Bhd do sound
unbeatable, That ia tee bad, 1°11 just follew along vithbyour suggestions
ney, of giving the mejor specifications.

Z am enclosing one of the pemiltimate plans for Medical Genetics here;
At ineludes most of the design features; which is net to see it ought to be
emulated foot by foot, The basic furniture unites are 3i--, a 31° hirh
work bench with epen shelving on the walls built in iilwminater ; and
& set of drawers ard cabinete not too unconventional, The 37-- mite are
essentially chemical beneh. Room 124 is a fair approximation te what I
might call o besic units miltiply this by 3 or 31/2 end you have the
basic seope, I have in mind & group of 12 active workers (ineluding Esther
& wysel?, postdoctoral fellows, graduate etudents and technical assistants)
plus some casual workere and perheps itinerant studuts, The plan calle for
about 16 bench spaces in the core labs, to allow some flexibility; e.g., when
I ar doing some micremanipulations, I amy well need 2 er three unite,

In my last letter, I already mentioned some of the relative shortecc..7zs,
part of which have to do with the purpose of the design kere which was to acco~
modate two other 622 ataff, Consequontly, 126 is too peripheral. 107-108 are
tee amell, There ia no ‘lab office’ in this plen, though 121 would substitute
fer it. There cughtvto be better cloakroom facilities, And I hope the whole
department will have a suitable place (or places) wheres e.g¢,, the students
can have lunches or coffee breaks without disturbing the lab. routine. There
is net an adequate stereroom facility or shop on the plan; these would be met
(lens eatiefactorily) by some space in the basement below. Room 125 is net
so well arranged; we were constrained by having to put the hoods along the
para-corridor spaces,

I very well reslize that cur space needs are relatively high. I think you
sleo understand the meason for this, If we vere closely affiliated (tope-
graphically) with another experimental group, e.g,, in the Virus Laboratory,
we should not need nearly so mish as we de to be a self-sustained group. If
we are to move along the lines that current investigation is opening up we
have to be in a position to do a modicum of chemical work, in addition te
our basic mieroblological facility, and I think 4t is a sine qua non that we
have the flexibility, e.g,, to handle more difficult microorganians than E, coli,
such as Heba Gells, We will still be lacking a number of things, e.g. © plant for
growing and harvesting medium bulk cultures (20-50 gallon seale), for which we
may still reasonably rely uponour colleagues in other departments,
And of course, 211 of our efforts are concentrated in the laboratory, and we do not
use cYop acreage, greenhouse space, or field exploration, I am sure you are very
well aware of all this, but you might have use of an explicit justification, We
will stili have to rely on cooperative facijities, ¢.2, for animal care, as that
comes up,

I am enolosing a memorandum which comprises one of my initial calculations for
space requirements, It was already trimmed mere than once, Let me know posthaste
what else I can do.

 
Fostsoript:

I've since spent several hours going over the Mulford Plane, with the
following conclusions.

Browne's plan, dated 1-7~58, has some clever arrangements, but no matter
how I try to accomodate it, it comes out rather undetisfactorily for ny
particular work needs. The thought of an internal corridor speaks for the
desirability of the isclation ef our internal traffic, but it 4a at best
wasteful, and with the bettleneok at the stairwell (Rx 334), and the whole
length of the string of rooms (122 feet) I cannot become enthusiastic about
it, While we need some smaller rooms, there are too many shallow enes north
of the internal corridor, Before going much further along thie line, I
would ask you about the practicality ef assi some of the odd-numbered
reoms south of the corridor in lieu ef 338 and (which are beyond the
bottleneck) .

In fact, after some manipulation ef the space, I see another scheme which
looks several orders of magnitude better from the start, I refer to the
‘East End', roughly rooms 355, 238, 3560, 360a, 360, 357, 351 353, 349 and
just possibly (depending on hbw the detailed plan works out) 347 and 345.

I think my preliminery proposal will be clearer if you look at the enclosed
sketehos, E1-E3, The following premises obtain:

BastEnd Piant 1) Access between 360 and 360c is necessary, at most, on an
emergeny basis,

2) The men's room 356-356a can be deleted or moved. (Will
the density of ceoupancy justify more than 3127) In any case, this seems
a trivial priority ever a choice area,

3) The outlet from the eastmost staircase can be shifted
tomopem on to the E-W corridor, just E of the elevator shaft. The present
autlet could be retained, but it would be wasteful.

4) The N-S corridor, such as it is, would be shifted to
the E of the pillars, leaving space to the W fer 2 or 3 rooms about 11-12
feet deep, I have to see more careful drawings than my 30'«1" 3d floor plan
to judge whether the existing partition along the pillars could be used
as the W wall of the new corridor,

5) Just as a query: if the stairway terminates at this floor,
is the space outlined in green the available for extension of a room?

Of course, I locked over the West wing with the same view, but the distal
staircase there makes the scheme impractical, and at that, we would have to
plan an even more drastic rebuilding,

This plam gives a space somewhat comparable to the cul-de-sac in Giannini,
if anything less awkward (no odd angles!). for a group of our size and character
of daily operation, I am convinced we need a private traffic lane, and by this
sofeme, we can make the corridor de multiple duty, We also arrive at an approxi-~
mation to a peripheral arrangement around a central max traffle area, with
obvious advantages,
This is, of course, an utterly blind proposal with respect to the other
plans of the department. I mm most anxious to know what your procedure is on
that, and what your present conclusions are. Do not think that because we
find it advantageous to make a more or less self-contained unit that we want
te isolate ourselves in any senes! I am sure that youf were the more pleased
with the Mulford plan fer its bringing the department together on one floor,
We will have to diseuss the details of this when we get together personally,
but I hope you will f111 me in on your thoughts as to the allocatign of the
other activities in the dept, Meanwhile, I do hope there is nothing impoasible
about the scheme just summarized,

I am anxious te go ahead with a more detailed plan for the area outlined,
but I had better wait until I get your reassurance that there 1s no irremovable
obstacle, It should not be necessary to wait for formal clearance-~- I'11] just
rely on your judgment whether it {a worthwhile to spend the time on this
lead, I would also urgently need a more detailed plan, say at &'=1" of the
existing construction in that wing, if that can possibly be obtained,

Your cost estimates are fabulous! They are running about three times as
high as what the medical school is paying for new construction (omitting land
eost of course) of the same sort, But that is hardly an item we can afford to be
conservative about here!

A few phone calle might clear up a whole lot. I'll make it a point to
have the Mulford plans at home wenings, and you could reach me there, station
to station, at CEdar-3-2968 just about any day at 6830 PM CST ($130 your time,
of course, so that should be reasonably convenient for both efvus,) If you want
to give a few days notice by letter, ok too, since the min advantage is cive~
and-teke, not speed,

If I can get another copy, I'11 send some draft plane for the Medical Genetics
Department, to give you an idea of one layout, I think there will be enough
delays before the final final plans are activated here that no one will be
stung, but this fs one point that obviously calls for delicacy and judgment of
timing,

JL