Wurster Hall enhancements remain a high and pressing priority. Renewing our facilities is critical for faculty and student recruitment and retention and the quality of our teaching and research endeavors. Enhancements will create a much more effective interaction among students, faculty, staff, and professionals, and will enhance the sense of community among the environmental design disciplines that was envisioned when the college was formed. In addition, continual facilities renewal reflects the design values that we teach. For Wurster Hall, we seek to do the following:

• First and Second Floor Exhibition Spaces. Public spaces on the first and second floors of Wurster Hall function as the college’s exhibition spaces. Currently, these spaces provide only the barest minimum (i.e., walls) required for the display of student and faculty work and for other exhibits. Most of the finishes and building systems are in great need of refurbishment. Carefully treated, these exhibition spaces in conjunction with our major lecture space and eating facility can provide exciting and dynamic spaces in which designers, planners, and artists can communicate with each other and with the broader community. Outstanding lighting design, beautiful floors, advanced and flexible mounting systems, and display cases will create a lively and focused center for observation and discussion in Wurster Hall. Estimated cost: $750,000.
   
  
• Computer-Based Tools Lab. Shop fabrication has been revolutionized by computer-based tools. In order to better prepare our undergraduate and graduate student to remain abreast of developments in architectural practice, we must create a CAD/CAM laboratory and integrate computer numerical control (CNC) instrumentation into design studios. Estimated cost: $750,000.
   
  
• Architecture Design Studios — Seventh Floor. The large open design studios in the Wurster Hall tower have changed very little since the building was completed in 1964. It is necessary to renovate the studio floors to create the kind of studio space needed for design education today. Informal discussions, pin-up reviews, and small group meetings will happen in semi-enclosed rooms created in the center of the studio floors. In addition, the central area will provide space for digital printing and plotting. On the north and south sides of the studios, low partitions will bring data connections to student workstations and provide informal boundaries for graduate studios and undergraduate sections of approximately fourteen students each. Estimated Cost: $500,000.