RGA Shown Designs For Fourth House

Byron Stookey, Jr. '54, acting as liaison between Radcliffe and the architectural firm of Harrison and Abramovitz, yesterday presented to the RGA plans for the Fourth House ($4,000,000) and Study Center ($3,000,000). New sets of drawings come in at the rate of one every ten days, but the general plan is as follows:

The new house will be made up of seven self-contained units, housing between 25 and 40 girls, most in singles, some in doubles. Because the planners are trying to retain the living conditions of an off-campus house, each unit will have its own living room, laundry and kitchen.

Passageway With Courtyard

Connecting the seven units will be an unbroken passageway below street level, not subterranean as in some Harvard courtyard. Entering each residential unit from courtyard level, one would find a kitchen and common rooms.

At street level begins the first floor of living quarters, topped by a second floor of bedrooms. The top floor, the fourth, includes smokers, study space, a typing room, a laundry room, and possibly music practice rooms and an art studio.

One of the seven residential units, a nine-story high-rise tower, has an altogether different layout. Very much like an apartment house, it will have suited (including kitchen) for four to six girls, plus penthouse apartments for masters and faculty. The penthouse floor plan is still open to change, since some students have objected that it would be unwise to segregate all faculty on the top floor.

Common Dinning Hall

All units of the house will share a common dining room, with small dining areas off to the side, which may be closed off. There will be tables for two and four as well as the usual institutional tables seating eight, and Stocky promised that the dining room, though large (capacity 175,) could be made pleasant.

Mrs. Bunting emphasized that the Fourth House was part of a plan to improve the Quad as a whole and reconvert emergency doubles. She hopes to spend $1,000,000 on each house on renovation, again possibly putting in a kitchenette on each floor.

Study Center plans were not presented in detail yesterday, but sketches showed a library with many study alcoves, rather than a large reading room. In addition, the Center will house a ring of seminar rooms and faculty offices, which look out onto a central courtyard.