Harold E. Jones Child Study Center City of Berkeley Landmark

Harold E. Jones Child Study Center

City of Berkeley Landmark Application

Year Built: 1960

Architect: Joseph Esherick

Supervising Landscape Architect: Thomas Church

Structural Engineers: Gilbert, Forsberg, Diekman & Schmidt

Mechanical Engineer: Daniel Yanow

Electrical Engineer: Benjamin B. Lezin

Building Contractor: Carlson & Maier

Application Prepared by: Rebecca Tracy, Barbara Scales, Jane Perry, Susan Cerny

June, 2013

ATTACHMENT 2 LPC 06-06-13 Page 1 of 56

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“No successful architecture can be formulated on a generalized system of esthetics; it

must be based on a way of life. We must decide what is alive and vital in our culture and

approach each problem with this in mind.” Joseph Esherick, FAIA, in Western Architect

and Engineer, December 1961.

“Child psychology is a field of study with its own characteristic problems, theories, and

methods. It includes areas of exploration as well as areas of systematic theory. It is best

understood, and the behavior of individuals is usually better understood, by students who

are not too exclusively devoted to a single theoretical point of view.” Director Harold E.

Jones, Chairman, Child Study Center Building Subcommittee, The Psychology of Early

Childhood, 1958.

“Physical conditions and teaching methods are essentially inseparable, creating . . . an

environment where physical resources [are] adequate for the variety of firsthand

experiences through which young children learn. The school environment should

stimulate children to inquire and help them to integrate their thinking with past

experience.” Professor Catherine Landreth, Child Study Center Building Subcommittee,

The Forty-Sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 1947.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

HISTORY OF THE SITE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

General Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Perimeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

“Coming In”: Walkway/Trellises/Courtyards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

The Buildings: Structure and Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Arrangement of Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

East and North Perimeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Conclusion/Summing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

MAJOR FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Designing for Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

The Children’s Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SITE (LPC 3.24.110 criteria) . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

Jones Child Study Center: Features to Preserve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I

APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V

LANDMARK APPLICATION FORM

Photo credits: CSC Landmark Application: Susan Cerny: p. 14; Robert Devaney: cover photo; pp. 11, 16,

18, 20 ( play area with raised sand box), 31 (right photo), 33 (right photo); Appendix Figures 11, 12, 13, 14,

15, 16, 18, 19; Gary Parsons; pp. 15, 17, 20 (sandpit and observation gallery); Appendix Figures 8, 17.

___________________________________________________________________


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INTRODUCTION

The Harold E. Jones Child Study Center is affiliated with the Institute for Human

Development, an Organized Research Unit of the University of California at Berkeley.

Located at 2425 Atherton Street, it houses two preschool classrooms with extensive

outdoor laboratories and currently provides full-day child care services to University

families through the campus Early Childhood Education Program, as well as facilities for

researchers, teachers, and students of child development.

The building, with its play yards, was designed by Joseph Esherick, FAIA, a

distinguished Bay Area architect, recipient of the prestigious AIA Gold Medal and

professor in the U.C. School of Architecture. It opened in 1960, replacing an earlier

Nursery School housed in the Institute of Child Welfare on Bancroft Way. Its presence in

this South of Campus residential neighborhood is reflective of larger changes in the

urban fabric.

Key figures in the creation of this significant building include Harold E. Jones,

Director of the Institute ; Joseph Esherick; and Catherine Landreth, Professor of Home

Economics and Director of the Nursery School. Their story is part of this application to

the City of Berkeley requesting Landmark Status for the Jones Child Study Center.


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HISTORY OF THE SITE

The College of California, the private precursor to the University of California, purchased

the land along Strawberry Creek from Orin Simmons in 1858. 1 The new campus site

was dedicated at Founder’s Rock in 1860.

To finance the construction of campus buildings the College of California established the

College Homestead Association in 1864 to purchase property south of Strawberry Creek,

subdivide and sell it. (Figure 1) The 160 acre tract, stretching from College (Audubon) to

MLK (Grove) and Bancroft to Dwight, was recorded in 1866. The blocks were large,

Durant and Haste were not platted, and the lots measured 150 x300. This is today’s

South-of Campus area where the Child Study Center at 2425 Atherton is located.

Figure 1. 1866 College Homestead Tract Subdivision Map Block 4 lots 6,7,8. Durant Avenue, Haste

Street and Atherton were not yet platted. The darkened area is the 1885 Ryer Subdivision. Lot 6 is the site

of the Child Study Center.

The University of California was established by the State legislature in 1868 and merged

with the College of California. Just a year later the Schools for the Deaf and Blind

opened at the top of Dwight Way. By 1873 when the first classes were held on the new

University campus, Berkeley’s population was around 200.

1 Helfand, Harvey. (2002). University of California, Berkeley: the Campus Guide. New York: Princeton

Architectural Press.


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After a spur line of the Central

(later Southern) Pacific Railroad

was opened along Shattuck

Avenue in 1876, the town began to

grow rapidly and by 1878 when

Berkeley incorporated as a city the

population had grown to 2000.

During the 1880s and 1890s both

the University and the population

grew. The introduction of electric

streetcar lines made transportation

convenient. The College

Homestead Tract was sold to

various investors and re-

subdivided several times.

In 1885 the site where the Child

Study Center stands had been

purchased by Frederick Ryer from

J. H. Haste and re-subdivided as

the Ryer Tract ––lots 6,7,8 of

Block 4 of the College Homestead

Association Tract (Figure 2). The

first house was built in 1886 on

Lot #1 for Maria Cummings for

$2500. At least 6 houses were built

in this tract by 1900. Haste Street

was only partially cut through at

this time and wasn’t fully a Figure 2. Ryer Subdivision Tract Map, 1885.

through street until after 1906. 2

In 1900 the population was approximately 13,000 and then exploded by 12,000 within a

year after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. The rapid growth of the population stimulated

economic, building and social development. By 1910 the population was 42,000 and by

1915 nearly 60,000. The South-of Campus neighborhood in the vicinity of 2425 Atherton

Street had become a fully built residential neighborhood of family homes. (Figure 3)

2 Haste Street Opening Maps 1891-1905, Alameda County Records, Digital Copies scanned and provided

by Jerry Sulliger to Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.


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Figure 3. 1911 Sanborn Insurance Map. The darkened area is the future site of the Child Study Center. In

1911 the area was a fully built residential neighborhood of mostly 2-story single-family homes. The private

Berkeley Preparatory School was located on Fulton between Dwight and Haste, the former home of Mr.

Haste.

Changes to the late nineteenth-and early-

twentieth centuries built environment in

the South-of-Campus neighborhood began

after World War I.

Single-family houses on large lots began

being divided into rooming houses,

multiple units or demolished for larger

multi-unit housing, institutional buildings,

such as larger churches, and commercial

buildings. The majority of changes

occurred along Telegraph Avenue and the

blocks closest to campus as the University

and Berkeley’s population continued to

grow. (Figure 4) Figure 4. 1929 Sanborn Insurance Map. Dots show

changes in structure or use. The Haste house is gone

and the northern third of the lot has been re-

subdivided.

The most significant changes to the South-of-Campus area occured after World War II.

Enabled financially with the GI Bill, students poured into the University and the student

population soared. With an increased demand for student housing the large older homes

were often converted into flats or rooming houses.


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Figure 5. The marked 1950

Sanborn Map illustrates how the

neighborhood around Atherton

Street had changed. While some of

the older houses remained, the

majority had been converted into

rooming houses or flats.

By 1944 a campus planning

office, the Office of

Architects and Engineers,

was established with Robert

J. Evans as director. 3 The

Alumni Association

published a report in 1948

that proposed several

alternatives for housing 8,000

students in “elevator

buildings.” The report is

filled with photos showing

the substandard old housing

that currently housed the majority of students. (Figures 6 & 7)

Figures 6 & 7. The 1948 map illustrates that with the

exception of the red rectangles (Telegraph/Bancroft

commercial buildings and some churches) the concept

was to demolish every building from College to Oxford

and Dwight to Bancroft. This has partially been realized.

3 Helfand (2002), p. 25: Interview with Robert J. Evans, February 15, 2013.


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In partnership with the city of Berkeley a redevelopment plan was created that enabled

the University to acquire property in the South-of-Campus area. “…the City Renewal

Agency had conditioned its designation of blight on the “‘sociology’ of the place, which

had changed from single family to multiple occupants, without the necessary ‘physical’

change.” 4

“The 1951 plan also estimated

40 to 50 acres of additional

land would be required for

expansion, if the open space

and the values of the existing

campus were to be preserved.

Most of this expansion was to

be dedicated to residential

halls that would “be built to

the maximum height

permissible. While seeking to

protect the openness of the

historic campus, the plan

advocated the demolition of

older buildings, with only a

few exceptions.” 5

In 1957 The Regents of the

University of California

purchased 2231 Haste Street,

the largest of the three

properties it purchased for the

Child Study Center site. 6

7

4 Allen, Peter. (2011).The End of Modernism? Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 70(3), pp. 354-374. University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jsah.2011.70.3.354 5 Allen (2011).

6 Ormsby Donogh File. Berkeley Architectural heritage Association. Also see 1911, 1929, 1950 Sanborn

maps above. 7 Allen (2011).


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DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE

General Description

The Harold E. Jones Child Study Center is located on the corner of Haste and Atherton

streets on a rectangular 150 x 133.7 foot lot (20,055 square feet). The Center is comprised

of two one-story, flat-roofed buildings, of post and lintel wood construction with integral

earth-toned color-dash coat stucco applied to the surfaces. These buildings, with

extensive floor-to ceiling windows, are set parallel to one another, separated but joined

by a central trellised walkway. The building on the south, generally “T” shaped with two

small “exterior” courtyards facing the walkway, contains two identical preschool

classrooms that are mirror-images of one another, separated by an observation gallery

that extends into the play area and forms the leg of the “T” shape. The building on the

north is a long narrow rectangle that contains offices and research rooms. The buildings

are placed on the northern 1/3 of the site; the tree shaded open-air play areas for the two

classrooms are on the south 2/3rds of the parcel along Haste Street and the corner of

Atherton. The public entrance is located at 2425 Atherton approximately 100 feet from

the corner of Atherton and Haste. It is inconspicuously situated down the trellised

walkway near the center of the building complex.

U. C Child Study Center.8

8

Western Architect and Engineer. December 1961, Vol. 222 No. 6; “Joseph Esherick: Theory and Practice.” p. 27.


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Style

The complex is the quintessence of mid-20th

century Bay Area modernism that

emphasized building and living in harmony with nature often referred to as The Second

Bay Tradition. The Second Bay Tradition has references to the-turn-of-the-20th

century

architectural philosophy expressed by the early work of architect Bernard Maybeck and

the Arts and Crafts Movement and promoted by Berkeley’s Hillside Club.

The complex is residential in character, expressed by the trellis of the entry-way, open

courtyards with trees, and other features. Careful consideration was given to the client’s

needs and the building’s uses ; the architecture draws on traditions of “fresh-air schools”

in provision of outdoor space—the “outdoors as classroom” ––the blending of indoor and

outdoor spaces.

The Architect

It was designed by master Bay Area architect Joseph Esherick, FAIA. (see “Major

Figures” below).

Location

The unassuming complex of buildings and play areas sit quietly, almost as an oasis, in

harmony with the residential neighborhood that is a mix of early 20th

century single

family residences-- many converted to flats-- and low-rise mid-20th

century apartment

complexes that replaced single-family houses.

Perimeter of the Property

Street Elevations: Haste Street

The 133.5-foot boundary of the property along Haste Street is entirely fenced. Behind

this fence are the play yards where there are several mature trees. There are two

emergency gate exits out of the property, one each from the two classroom play yards,

onto Haste through the fence. The West classroom yard also has a fence exit onto

Atherton.

View from corner of Haste and Atherton Streets

Atherton Street

The “front” of the property begins at the corner of Atherton and Haste streets where the

fence continues. The fence rises above a low retaining wall faced in stucco. At this


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corner, the fence is notched to accommodate a mature Live Oak tree whose graceful

branches overhang and shade this corner of the play yard of the classroom on the west

side of the building.

The Fence

One notices the rhythmic pattern of caps attached to the supporting members of the “long

and strongly detailed dark redwood” 9

fence. According to George Homsey, later to

become a partner in the Esherick architectural firm EHDD, “The interesting thing about

the fence there…the boards go up to the post and then there is a gap. I think at one time

we talked about putting colored plastic in those gaps but we never did. And then that

little piece of wood on top is very whimsical, just to make it more playful.”10

The pattern

of the recurring cap on the top of the fence posts is carried the full length of the fence on

both the Haste Street side as well as Atherton and integrates the inside with the outside of

the site.

Exterior Walls

The redwood fence ends where a warm-orange color stucco wall begins. This wall has

no openings. A short ramp bordered by a metal railing leads up to a trellised walkway

along the side of a small courtyard.

On the north side of the trellised walkway there is another short expanse of stucco

broken by a single window that marks the exterior wall of the Administrative wing of the

second (north) building of the complex. (See cover page of this report.) The original

stucco of the wall was integral color-dash-coat stucco but the wall under and around this

window has been painted in past years to match the original color due to some repair and

patching of cracks in the wall.

Plantings

On the street side much of the original plant material still exists. Two of the four purple

plum trees that lined the street level still survive as does much of the wisteria and azalea

in planting beds under the windows of the Administrative and Research building north of

the walkway. Original landscaping plans by Thomas Church are in the Environmental

Design Department Archive. (Appendix, Figures 9 & 10).

Signage

The original, elegant but simple natural-wood panel with white lettering, large enough to

be read from the street, identifies the site. It is free-standing, located in front of a

handsome railing bordering a ramp leading to the walkway (See cover page).

“Coming In”: Walkway/Trellises/Courtyards

The two buildings that comprise this site are about 100 feet from the corner and set

approximately 4 feet above street level. The entrance is between the two buildings.

9 Western Architect and Engineer, Dec 1961, vol.222 No. 6; N.A. “Joseph Esherick: Theory and Practice,”

p. 25. See Appendix, Figure 8. 10

George Homsey. Interview February 9, 2013. Homsey worked on the drawings for the Child Study

Center throughout the planning and construction.


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Visitors come up a short ramp (making the entry handicapped-accessible) to reach

trellised covered walkways (Appendix, Figure 11). Immediately to the right and left

(south and north) are two “arms” of the main walkway that runs east and west, between

the two buildings. The long central trellised walkway is not directly before you at the top

of the ramp but slightly to the left.

From the street, as well at the top of the ramp, the function of the two buildings is

somewhat mysterious. Joseph Esherick said, “A building should be like a forest, where

you can stand outside and sense the nature of the spaces without really seeing them.” 11

Homesy comments: “You have a public side and private side. The two are intertwined.

It is very rich. They are not just a straight line. You cross that line and you are in the

realm of the institution. At the entry to the trellised walkway it is “part of the

neighborhood in terms of the scale and feel and sensitivity to the scale of the area…You

come up a ramp. You start to enter the precinct of the building. It’s all part of the public

side. Normally there’s a door and bang you go inside. But not here. This is quite

different. More of a processional coming in.”12

The Courtyards

At the top of the entrance ramp, on the south side, a small courtyard can be seen from the

street. (A similar courtyard is located farther down the walkway outside the east

classroom). These courtyards are walled on two sides by soft orange stucco walls and

wide, floor-to-ceiling multi-paned industrial-style metal windows trimmed in a bright

salmon color that meet at the corner of the two walls. At the base, on one side, the

windows are reinforced with embedded wire, for safety, and there is a protective railing

across the central sliding-glass door section. The windows on the south create a

transparency–– allowing a visitor not only a view of the classroom beyond, but out into

the play yard through similar windows at the rear of the classroom. Children can be seen

moving freely in and out of doors to the play yard through the sliding glass doors of the

large rear windows (Appendix, Figure 12). The visibility of the interior of the classroom

and play yard from the walkway is an important feature of this site. The integration of the

outside and inside spaces is a prevalent factor in the design of the site. Children, parents

and visitors can clearly see what is going on both in and outside.

A door on the south exterior wall leads to the west classroom. A doorway on the north

side of the trellised walkway leads to the west end of the Administrative building but

since its glass panels face a more or less blank wall on the interior it is not likely to be

mistaken for a main entry and it is in fact the exit from that building

The first courtyard (Appendix, Figure 13), outside the west classroom, features a large

mature Japanese maple tree that spreads its limbs to rise above roof height. The tree

provides children, teachers and visitors with a sense of the changing of seasons with its

spring and summer green, brilliant fall foliage with abundant falling leaves and graceful

11

Western Architect and Engineer, Dec 1961, p. 26 12

Homsey (2013)


14

bare branches in winter. Generations of children have attempted to climb up the low

branches of this beloved tree when they arrive or leave school. (In the second courtyard,

outside the east classroom, the original Japanese maple has not survived; other plant

material has been introduced by teachers.)

The Trellised Walkways

The overhead trellis structure is integral

to the design of the site, separating and

tying the two buildings together at the

same time. The trellis is a significant

defining element of this complex as well

as The Second Bay Tradition and Bay

Area mid-20th

century modernism. The

design pattern of the trellis structure

creates a rhythmic element to the

entrance walkway.

The trellises are post-and-lintel wood construction. The columns supporting the trellis are

on a metal plate connector which is a bracket that holds it up off the ground. “The

supports for the trellised walkway are all wood; a built up column. - not a single column.

The main column is 4x6 with a 2x6 “cripple” on either side; they are applied. They are

all added on.”13

The trellises are canopied with bright primary-colored translucent plastic panels that add

color to the distinctive rhythmic patterns of the trellis structure. The colors also reflect off

the walkway, walls, and windows depending on the position of the sun. The use of the

color panels is extensive and unusual; the effect is singular and highly significant.

The walkway itself is concrete with exposed aggregate that was popular during the 1950s

and is original.

The Main Entrance

A decorative gate marks the entry to the complex. Homsey notes: “There is a subtle

module that’s going on. In the structural trellis you can see the beams have a nice rhythm.

The beam spacing sets up a structural rhythm. The windows and doors all relate to that.

So when you are walking under it, you get the sense of the structural rhythm which is part

of the feeling of the space. At the entrance prope Homsey explained: “They (the beams)

are elevated … to give the entrance way prominence right in the center. The line of the

trellis lines up to the door.” 14

The rhythm changes at the entrance gate.

13

Homsey (2013) 14

Homsey (2013).


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The Gate: Materials and Design

The double entrance gate, approximately 6’ high. is a simple but sturdy wood frame

with narrow perpendicular wood pieces within the frames. It is divided 3/4 on top -1/4

on bottom.. An original stationary panel of the same design

extends across the planting area to the wall on the north. Thick

clear plastic panels, added later, create a solid but transparent

barrier for additional security.

Public Entrance

The public entrance to the complex is via the building on the

north side. Here the reception office is located, where visitors

must register to gain access to other spaces in the complex, such

as administration, research, testing and classroom observation or

study (Appendix, Figure 14).

The reception area is clearly visible through large double glass doors flanked by large

windows. The doors are trimmed in bright orange, the flanking windows in dark brown.

The receptionist’s office can be seen on the left and a sofa and a few adult and child size

chairs are on the right of the reception area. Colorful children’s artwork is displayed on

the walls. The area’s function is obvious.

Across the walkway from reception is another pair of doors that lead to a small foyer and

to the entrance to the two observation galleries that intersect the east and west classrooms

and play yards. These doors are plain solid-wood panels painted dark-brown. They do

not suggest access and they are kept locked. Access to this area must be cleared through

the receptionist or site administrator.

The Buildings: Structure and Materials

The buildings are constructed on a concrete slab with wood-frame stud walls covered

with plywood. The doorknobs, hardware and signage on the wood sash doors are oil-

rubbed bronze . The door knobs in the classroom are placed out of reach of children

whereas light switches are the normal height. All door hardware in the Administrative

side is at the normal height.

Industrial materials were used throughout, whenever feasible. Interior walls are plastered

in the administrative wing but paneled in re-sawn cedar in the classrooms. Floor surfaces

are linoleum or vinyl tile. As previously noted, industrial sash was used for the large

windows and sliding doors.

Arrangement of Functions

As noted previously, the classrooms are in the building on the south side of the walkway

and the administrative, research and testing functions are in the building on the north.


16

Administration Building

Reception, teacher and administrative offices are located in the west wing of the

Administration building together with storage, kitchen, and restroom facilities including a

recently installed ADA compliant bathroom. In the center there is a large conference

room just off the reception area with a wall of windows facing north.

The east wing of the Administration Building houses research and testing rooms and

some additional offices. The testing rooms that face

the walkway have large sliding glass doors

(adjacent photo). Children who are being

withdrawn from the classroom to engage in a

research project with a student or professor enter

and leave the testing room by this route. In this

way children are more comfortable because they

can see familiar surroundings from the testing

areas. On the interior side of the testing room there

is a viewing gallery with one-way glass for

observation. The gallery is equipped with audio capacity and head phones so that the

sound of voices in the testing rooms can be heard by an observer. Some of the other

testing rooms are currently used as offices and have undergone a number of alterations.

The Classrooms

The east and west classrooms are essentially mirror images of one another. They are L-

shaped with the long side of the L facing south, and each can be subdivided by means of

a sliding panel.15

The difference between the two is that the classroom on the west has its

entrance at the front of the complex while the east classroom’s entry is at the end of the

central walkway.

Classroom Materials

Walls are paneled with 12” wide, unpainted re-sawn cedar boards laid vertically. Darker

brown wood pieces set vertically and horizontally suggest structural elements, add

rhythm to the spaces, define openings and built-ins; small pieces of the same color are

used as trim. Display areas are defined by corkboard panels. Floors are linoleum over

the concrete slab. Originally there was radiant heat, but it has been replaced with forced

air heating. Ceilings are white with two types of light fixtures: hanging boxed lights and recessed ceiling lights. Windows overlooking the play yard are the same design, materials

and color as those facing the courtyards.

Classroom Plan

Within the large L-shaped space there are several distinct “work” areas that are largely

defined by movable shelving. Architectural Record notes: “Moveable casework permits

rearrangement of interior spaces into smaller or larger areas for special activities of all

15

See floor plan above, p. 10


17

kinds.”16

Each classroom has an entrance hallway with a children’s cubby area, a zone

of immediate interest scaled to a three-foot pre-school child’s level. Esherick

commented: “‘We were concerned all the way through more with the children than with

the adults who would be using [the Center]….Instead of pulling the ceiling down for the

kids, we tried to design their spaces so that a whole world of interest was maintained at

their level with another world 3 ft higher for the adults’” 17

, Just beyond the cubby area is

an open kitchen/preparation area and children’s bathroom, with an adult bathroom off to

one side of the entryway. One emerges from the relatively narrow and rather cozy

entryway into the wide light-filled space of the main classroom area, whose floor-to-

ceiling windows, shaded by a wide overhang, create transparency between the interior

and the ample outdoor play yard.

The interior space, clearly visible through the large floor to ceiling exterior windows of

the approach to the classroom, can be divided by a sliding door into two sections: the big

main classroom facing the play area, and a quiet room (originally a second food

preparation area with a sink and counter top) facing the courtyard. A unique feature of

the main classrooms is a large two-story playhouse located behind the cubby area. within

the main inside classroom space. George Homsey explains: “The “playhouse structure is

another functional space for …. teaching. The structural ceiling goes all the way across.

[The playhouse] is part of the room. It’s not some wall that goes up to the ceiling and

clouds the issue of what the structure is and how big a room it is. It’s all part of the

openness.”18

It is open floor to its ceiling on both floors but orange wire-type fencing

material protects those playing on the second story (Appendix Figure 15). The

classrooms have built-in bookcases, cabinets and storage spaces. Some of the furniture, in

simple light-colored wood, is original, built to Catherine Landreth’s specifications.

16

N.A. (1963). “Teaching and Research Combined: Child Study Center, University of California,

Berkeley, California: Joseph Esherick, Architect.” Architectural Record, April, 133(5), p.175 . 17

Western Architect and Engineer, Dec 1961, p. 26 18

Homsey (2013)


18

East Classroom showing original shelving, Landreth-designed table, and observation gallery windows

Dividing the west and east class rooms is

the observation gallery that extends out into

the play yard. This gallery is defined on the

classroom side and the play area by dark

grey “windows” approximately 8’ wide that

run their full length at the back of both

sections of the classrooms. Observers can

hear as well as see the children as the

windows are screened rather than glassed-in.

Seating and task lighting in the galleries

facilitate note-taking. Observation gallery

Access to the east classroom is different from the entrance to the west classroom, that

faces into a wall. The entrance to the classrooms is through large glass paneled doors.

The entrance to the east classroom faces into the children’s cubby area. This door has a

side panel with additional hinges that can be opened up all the way to accommodate large

objects. Opposite the door of the east classroom entry is a glass paneled double door

leading to the play yard. Therefore one can see, from the trellised walkway, straight

through the entry area out into the play yard, enhancing again the transparency of the

spaces and the integration of outdoors and indoors.

Exterior: Features of the Play Yards

Outdoor play space predominates in this setting, occupying 70% of the area, in contrast to

the 30% taken up by the inside classrooms. In a 1957 planning document, the exterior

space is designated as Outdoor laboratory (250 sq. feet per child) and Semi shelter


19

laboratory (25 sq feet per child), distinguished from the Indoor laboratory (40 sq feet per

child).19

The two play yards are more or less twins of one another and continue the same design

elements as the entrance to the complex .Each yard contains two distinct play areas :

one a semi shelter for table-top type projects which is covered by a slightly up-sloping

trellised roof, and a large open active-play area beyond. The covered semi shelters are

the same latticed structure as the entry walkway and “…so they are all of a piece––– and

the exterior color just keeps going around and its all part of the structure too,” Homsey

said, referring to the warm stucco color of the walls and the deep brown of the fixed

elements such as the counter top, sink and cupboards of the preparation and storage areas.

In keeping with the idea of integrating the inside and outside, these areas serve as outdoor

classrooms (Appendix Figure 16 & 17).

Many of the fixed focal areas of the play yard may reflect what Catherine Landreth

wanted rather than Esherick’s design; these elements add much to the educational value

of the space in potential for children’s interaction with natural elements such as sand,

water, dirt, variation in foliage of the planting such as the holly tree over a grassy bank

and fragrant jasmine and flowering wisteria. These focal areas include (a) a low-sided

wood sandbox with a wide surrounding lip for seating, designed specifically for dry

sand experience, under the semi shelter, with wood cover panels to provide an identified,

raised focal surface, (b) child accessible open shelving, also under the semi shelter ,

which defines two separate focal activity areas, (c) a child stand-up-to sandbox with

adjacent water source for combined sand and water experience, with a less-wide lip,

accompanying child-accessible shelving, and wood panel covers, (d) a large sand pit for

full body digging/construction experience with water source, (e) a climbing apparatus,

and (f) a separate swing/climbing apparatus.

19

Child Study Center Facilities for Children (26 per group), September 18, 1957, Esherick Collection,

Child Study Center Project through 31 May 1959, Environmental Design Archives, University of

California, Berkeley.


20

Play yard with the fixed features of a raised sand box and custom-designed shelving

The observation gallery with its screened windows extends nearly to the end of the

sheltered play area thereby dividing the two classroom outdoor areas. The redwood fence

surrounds each play yard on the south and west sides.

Sandpit & Observation Gallery

Landscaping in the outdoor classroom includes paved cement and tanbark ground cover

across the rear south end of both yards, a center holly tree in the East classroom, and a

ginko tree in the south east corner of the East classroom. Original ivy growing on the

inside East and South fence perimeter has fallen to disrepair. Ivy remains below

observation windows in the East classroom and jasmine in the West classroom.

Storage and Workroom

To the left of the entry to the east classroom a side room was originally an efficient and

commodious space for an on- site custodian. Custodial services are now managed


21

centrally by the University and little on-site space is needed. Currently the room houses

the ceramic kiln for the school’s use and teacher storage as well as over head ducting and

equipment required for the retrofit and installation of a forced air heating system which

was deemed necessary when the radiant heating system failed.

East and North Perimeter of Site: Retaining walls and set backs

East Side

The two buildings are set back from the east side of the property line. The Classroom

building is only set back approximately 4 feet, a very narrow space. The Administration

building on the north is set back more generously–– about 8-10 feet. The original, tall

(more than 6’) concrete retaining wall, uniform in color to the rest of the building, runs

the full length of the property including the play areas, and is topped by a fence built in

the same style as the ones along Haste and Atherton streets.

North Side

On the north side of the Administration building the setback is quite generous, about 12

feet wide, as this was intended to be an outdoor sitting area for the offices and research

rooms that have floor to ceiling windows and doors. Their doors open onto a landing of

pebble-imbedded concrete just large enough for a chair or two (approximately 6”x4”). A

wider planting area ends at an orange concrete wall that again is topped by the same

fencing as the rest of the property. The original bamboo planting in this area has been

removed; this entire side of the property is not being cared for and is filled mostly with

weeds. There is a utility exit to Atherton Street from this area.

Conclusion/Summing up

The design elements of the exterior such as stucco color, window treatment, trellised

canopy over the semi shelter, as well as the design of the play yard fence ,are carried

throughout the site. These design elements are integral to all the exterior spaces including

the enclosed play yards. In this uniquely transparent environment, glimpses of a holly

tree, part of the original planting, over a large sand area in the east play yard and a raised

mound are visible from the walkway as well as children moving freely from the interior

classroom to the exterior spaces of what Catherine Landreth termed the” Outside

laboratory “ for the children to explore. “Young children spend the greater part of their

time in large muscle activities. They run, jump, climb, pedal, push and pull simply for

the fun of doing it.”20

This perspective has certainly influenced the ample size of the

Child Study Center’s outdoor spaces.

***

George Homsey: “ I think as an example of Joe’s work, it [the Child Study Center] is

very special, because Joe did a lot of elegant homes; for fancy people both here and in the

mountains and various places. And the scale of what he did there was [on] a very elegant

scale. Here he has the elegance, but you can tell he was listening to somebody. He

20

Landreth, Catherine and Howard Moise. “Unit Plan for Nursery Schools” , Progressive Architecture,

March 1949, p.79


22

didn’t invent this. This came out of an interplay in talking to the client-Catherine and

everybody else. “

Susan Cerny: “Because he wasn’t a child expert. He was an architect.”

GH: “He listened to the client. And that was the important thing. And then when he

thought of the proportions of the other things inside, he had an idea about it. He didn’t

necessarily sit down and sketch it for you. But he had the idea and he made sure that it

was translated. And that was his genius. We did all the drawings but Joe always had the

idea that drove what we did.”21

21

Homsey (2013); Joseph Esherick drawings, Nov. 5, 1958: University of California College of

Environmental Design Archive, Esherick Collection.


23

MAJOR FIGURES

Major figures in the creation of this significant building include Harold E. Jones,

Director of the Institute; Joseph Esherick; and Catherine Landreth, Professor of Home

Economics and Director of the Nursery School. Their story is part of this application to

the City of Berkeley requesting Landmark Status for the Jones Child Study Center.

Harold Ellis Jones 1894-1960

Harold E. Jones helped initiate the University of California, Berkeley’s study of children

in 1927 and directed those activities until his retirement in 1960. Jones was born in New

Brunswick, New Jersey but spent most of his childhood in New England. He maintained

a lifelong interest in observing and documenting nature in his surroundings, as in his

description of his Berkeley worksite to his mother: “In the back yard of the Institute, we

are often visited after the children have gone home by flocks of quail. The California

quail are less handsome and tuneful than the Connecticut variety; but on the other hand

they seem much more sociable.”22

Jones attended Massachusetts Agricultural College and Amherst College, majoring in

biology. Robert Frost was one of his professors at Amherst. According to letters found

by his wife, developmental psychologist Mary Cover Jones, Harold and Robert Frost took

walks together while Harold was an undergraduate. Jones and his wife Mary would

name their daughter Lesley, the same name as Frost’s daughter.23

Jones accepted a graduate assistantship in psychology at Columbia, receiving an M.A.

degree in 1920 and a Ph.D. degree in 1923. He stayed at Columbia to become an

Assistant Professor. In 1927 Jones was recruited by Berkeley’s President Campbell to

serve as Research Director of the U.C. Institute of Child Welfare, one of five study

centers in the continent supported by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial. Initially

an Assistant Professor, he advanced to a professorship in 1931, and from 1935 to 1960

served as Director of the Institute, which he developed into an internationally respected

research center for human growth. Projects under Jones’s directorship enabled the

Institute to trace, for the first time, physical and mental development and personality

change in individuals from birth through age 30 in two studies and from age ten to age 40

in another. As the subjects of the research matured, the Institute was renamed the Institute

of Human Development.24

22

Jones, Mary Cover. (1983). Harold E. Jones and Mary C. Jones, partners in longitudinal studies :

transcript, 1981-1982. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California. An interview conducted by Suzanne B.

Riess in 1981-1982, Regional Oral History Office University of California, The Bancroft Library,

Berkeley, California.

23 Jones, M.C. (1983)

24 The Centennial of The University of California, 1868-1968. Human Development, Institute of (B).

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb4v19n9zb&chunk.id=div00517&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire


24

The Institute’s first setting was on Bancroft Way, where the Boalt Law School Library

now stands. It included a nursery school, the aims of which were:

to promote, through teaching and research, the welfare of children,

a provide a lab for the study of child development by experts,

to collect information on child training for use in parent education,

to offer University students an opportunity for directed observation of children.25

In 1957 the University commissioned architect Joseph Esherick to design a site a few

blocks off campus specifically for these purposes, as the Institute itself was moving onto

the campus. Harold E. Jones chaired the committee that worked with Joseph Esherick to

plan the new center.26

Esherick would find Jones to be “dry and brittle and academic,”27

in part perhaps because

Jones was very unhappy about the decision to move the new child study center off

campus.28

In the Fall of 1960, the new facility began operation as the Harold E. Jones

Child Study Center. Colleague, fellow professor, and founding member of the Institute

Jean Macfarlane would write with other colleagues of Jones: “The aspect that perhaps

stands out most sharply from his energetic and extremely full professional life was his

heroic refusal ever to accept defeat even in the face of budgetary, staff, or administrative

obstacles. The unflagging pursuit of knowledge about the nature and the process of

growth and change outweighed personal comfort and at times even political

expediency.” 29

_text ; Harold Ellis Jones: In Memoriam, University of California Regents, 1961at

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb2t1nb146;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00017&t

oc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere ; Jones, Mary Cover. (1991). The Institute of Human Development

Oral History Project: Mary Cover Jones: An Interview with Mary Cover Jones, Ph.D. Interviews

Conducted by Vicki Green, Ph.D. on May 12, 1982 and May 21, 1982. Regents of the University of

California.

25 Jones, M.C. (1983)

26 Child Study Center Design Committee notes (see Appendix for document from U.C. College of

Environmental Design Archives, Joseph Esherick Collection). 27

Joseph Esherick, (1996). “An Architectural Practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1938-1996,” 1996,

an oral history conducted in 1994-1996 by Suzanne B. Riess, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft

Library, University of California, Berkeley at:

http://archive.org/stream/eshericksfbayare00joserich/eshericksfbayare00joserich_djvu.txt

28

Macfarlane, Jean. (1991). The Institute of Human Development Oral History Project: Jean Macfarlane:

An Interview with Jean Macfarlane, Ph.D. Interviews Conducted by Vicki Green, Ph.D. on August 5, 1982.

Regents of the University of California 29

“Harold Ellis Jones: In Memoriam, University of California Regents, 1961” at

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb2t1nb146;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00017&t

oc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere


25

Harold Ellis Jones died in Paris, June 7, 1960, at the very beginning of an elaborately

planned six-months' retirement vacation in Europe with his wife.30

Harold E. Jones’ publications include over 160 titles : studies on emotions and emotional

development, motor development, mental development or decline, learning, and nature-

nurture studies of twins. In addition to his own research, he supported and often gave

critical guidance during his thirty-three years at the University to over 450 research

undertakings of others. University President Clark Kerr said of Harold E. Jones, “The

Institute was Harold and Harold was the Institute.”31

In addition to his research and Directorship, at a time when fathers were not regular

participants in child-rearing, Jones shared in bringing up his children: putting them to

bed, feeding them, reading to them, having, as his wife describes “all sorts of little games

with them,” and taking them out a lot on walks. He was a gardener with a broad

knowledge of botany, a photographer. He wrote poetry, jingles, humorous doggerel and

parody, told stories, did original Christmas cards, and continued his letter writing to

previous professors and to his own children.32

Joseph Esherick 1914-1998

Joseph Esherick was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, graduating from the University

of Pennsylvania with a degree in architecture in 1937. While at Penn he also did

anatomical drawings for the medical school, saying later that he learned more about how

buildings are assembled in dissecting a cadaver than through his formal studies.33

Esherick served in the Navy during World War II, then established his own firm in San

Francisco in 1946. His early work, mostly residential, betrays influences of both William

Wurster and Gardner Dailey. Another early and lasting influence was Esherick’s uncle,

the sculptor and woodworker Wharton Esherick, whose artistic vision based in rural

nature was a sustaining inspiration for his nephew Joe Esherick.34

30

“Harold Ellis Jones: In Memoriam, University of California Regents, 1961”

31

Eichhorn, Dorothy. (1991). The Institute of Human Development Oral History Project: Dorothy

Eichorn: An Interview with Dorothy Eichorn, Ph.D. Interviews Conducted by Vicki Green, Ph.D. on July

13, 1982 and July 21, 1982. Regents of the University of California.

32 Jones, 1983; Harold Ellis Jones: In Memoriam, 1961

33 Johnson, Robert & Gary Parsons. (2010). “The Pelican Building – 1956. UC Berkeley Campus. Joseph

Esherick, architect.” City of Berkeley Landmark Application.

34 Johnson & Parsons (2010); Peters, Richard C. & Jean-Pierre Protzen. (1998). University of California In

Memoriam: Joseph Esherick, Professor of Architecture, Emeritus, Berkeley, 1914-1998.

http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/inmemoriam/JosephEsherick.htm


26

In the 1960s Esherick's firm began to take on larger projects, such as The Cannery in San

Francisco, and Adlai Stevenson College at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Esherick also designed demonstration houses for The Sea Ranch, a planned community

noted for the sensitivity with which plan and design integrate with the natural elements

of the site. In 1972 Esherick reorganized his office with three longtime associates --

George Homsey, Peter Dodge and Chuck Davis --to form Esherick Homsey Dodge &

Davis, in 1968 the winner of the Architecture Firm Award. The firm continues today as

EHDD Architecture. Esherick’s notable projects with EHDD include Wurster Hall, the

home of the College of Environmental Design on the University of California, Berkeley

campus, called the first large pre-cast concrete structure on the West Coast; the Student

Union at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California; and the

Monterey Bay Aquarium.35

In addition to his work with the firm, Esherick was an educator and consultant. He taught

at University of California, Berkeley (1952-1985), served as the Dean of the School of

Architecture for the University (1977-1981) and established an independent consulting

firm in the early 1980s.

Esherick’s lifelong concern for the quality of architectural education, and his sustained

effort to improve it, brought him the Topaz Award of the Association of Collegiate

Schools of Architecture for excellence in architectural education. Upon his retirement in

1985, Esherick received the Berkeley Citation, the most prestigious award given for

notable achievement and service to the University.36

Influencing generations of

architecture students, Professor Esherick taught that buildings should be designed from

the inside out, making form secondary to aspects like views and light. "Beauty," he said,

"is a byproduct of solving problems correctly."37

A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects since 1965, Joseph Esherick was

awarded the Institute’s Gold Medal for lifetime achievement in 1989, making him one of

only 47 recipients since 1907 and putting him in the company of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le

Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe among other luminaries. He was cited as an

''outstanding designer, an educator steeped in the arts, and a humanist with a deep

concern for the betterment of the profession and our society.''38

35

College of Environmental Design Archives, Berkeley, web site:

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf35800389/admin/?query=Joseph Esherick#bioghist-1.;

Peters & Protzen (1998); “Joseph Esherick, 83, an Acclaimed Architect,” New York Times Obituary by

Ralph Blumenthal, December 25, 1998.

36 Peters & Protzen (1998)

37

“Joseph Esherick, 83, an Acclaimed Architect,” New York Times Obituary by Ralph Blumenthal,

December 25, 1998.

38

Esherick (1996); Peters & Protzen (1998); “Joseph Esherick, 83, an Acclaimed Architect,” December 25,

1998.


27

"The ideal kind of building is one you don't see," Mr. Esherick liked to say. Accordingly

his buildings were designed to blend into their surroundings and serve their occupants.

Although his most notable buildings were highly public, some critics felt that his best

work was done for intimate, customized projects. "Daylight doesn't just bathe them, it

comes alive in them - dances and dodges and surprises and glows," the late architect

Charles Moore once said of Esherick's residential work, “controlled and balanced, but

then it is suddenly ... magic." 39

Esherick scorned aesthetic theories of design, advocating that buildings should be

designed for their specific purposes and inhabitants. He taught that no two design projects

were ever alike, and that each project had to be thought through from the ground up, so to

speak, in view of its unique conditions and circumstances. Solutions to the problems of

form and function had to be reinvented for every case.40

The work of Joseph Esherick defies a signature identification of style, displaying a

dramatic range of expressions: the Pelican Building, the University Young Women’s

Christian Association Building, Wurster Hall on the Berkeley campus, seven BART

stations, the McIntyre House in Hillsborough, the Carey House in Mill Valley, and the

Lehman House in Kent Woodlands, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, the

Tenderloin Community School in San Francisco.41

Two of his projects, the Pelican

Building and the University Young Women’s Christian Association Building, have

received landmark status from the city of Berkeley.

In July of 1957 the University of California, Berkeley formally commissioned Joseph

Esherick to design a research center for the study of young children where the daily life

of play and learning would be paramount (Appendix Figure 20). This Child Study Center

would replace the existing center on Bancroft Way, in what Esherick called “an old

house” with “a marvelously ratty old yard . . . that was the kids’ play yard.”42

He

observed at the old site frequently in 1957, describing it as both “day care for the kids and

an instructional zoo, almost, for the [University] students.” From those observations,

Esherick noticed that “it’s obvious that the children were very, very knowledgeable about

the whole layout.” 43

Two University representatives worked most closely with Esherick

39

Joseph Esherick Obituary by Dan Levy in Joseph Esherick (1996), “An Architectural Practice in the San

Francisco Bay Area, 1938-1996,” in an oral history conducted in 1994-1996 by Suzanne B. Riess,

Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

40

Peters & Protzen (1998) 41

Peters & Protzen (1998); “Joseph Esherick: Theory and Practice” in Western Architect and Engineer,

December, 1961, Vol. 222, No. 6.

42 Esherick, Joseph (1996). “An Architectural Practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1938-1996,” in an

oral history conducted in 1994-1996 by Suzanne B. Riess, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft

Library, University of California, Berkeley.

43Esherick (1996)


28

as the dedicated clients: Harold Ellis Jones, Director of the Institute of Child Welfare, and

Catherine Landreth, the Director of the Nursery School.

Catherine Landreth 1899-1995

Catherine Landreth, a University of California, Berkeley , Professor of Child

Development in the Department of Home Economics and Director of the Institute of

Human Development Nursery School collaborated closely with Esherick to create the

model environment still in operation. According to her colleagues, it was Landreth who

strove to secure administrative support for the Child Study Center project.44

Landreth was born in Dunedin, New Zealand into a family of educators. She received

her early education in a one-room school taught by her mother. “We each worked at our

own pace on what was assigned and we had some choice of what we might do. We were

in a sense all teaching as well as learning. This may have made it seem natural to me that

a school for young children should provide a range of activities and experiences which

offer some promise of successful involvement for beginning learners as well as

continuing challenge for the more advanced.”45

Landreth graduated in 1920 from the University of Otago. She earned an M.S. in

nutrition and education from the Iowa State University in 1926. In 1929-1930, she held

a Laura Spelman Rockefeller Fellowship that enabled her to study first-hand the newly

established nursery schools at Merrill-Palmer in Detroit, Michigan, Teachers' College at

Columbia, and the University of Minnesota. In 1936 she earned a Ph.D. in psychology at

the University of California, Berkeley under the advisement of Harold E. Jones. From

1936 to 1938 Landreth taught at the University of Chicago as Assistant Professor and

Director of the University Nursery School.

In 1938 Landreth accepted a dual appointment as Professor and Director of the Nursery

School at Berkeley. As Landreth says, “my first responsibility was to make the school an

effective learning laboratory for three- to five-year old children” while at the same time

accommodate University students using the school as a child development laboratory. At

the Bancroft way site, Landreth designed a “one-way vision screen [appended to a

garage] behind which students could observe the children . . . and a separate semi-

shelter” for child activity, which the University Buildings and Grounds Department built

based on “rough sketches” she supplied.46

Landreth’s The Education of the Young Child:

44

Almy, Millie, Dorothy H. Eichorn, Paul H. Mussen, & Read D. Tuddenham. (1995). Catherine Landreth,

Psychology: Berkeley, 1995, University of California: In Memoriam.

45Landreth, Catherine (1983). “The Nursery School of the Institute of Child Welfare of the University of California,

Berkeley,” an oral history conducted by Dan Burke, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of

California, Berkeley, p. 1.

46 Landreth, Catherine (1982). “Interview, an oral history conducted in 1982, by Vicki Green, Institute of Human

Development Oral History Project,” deposited in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.


29

A Nursery School Manual (1942) includes photos and a map47

of her design, which

foreshadow the Harold E. Jones Child Study Center’s predominance of outdoor space, the

demarcation of fixed focal areas, and the use of an overhang to define and protect

activities in variable weather.

47

Landreth, Catherine (in collaboration with Katherine H. Read). (1942). The Education of the Young Child: A

Nursery School Manual. New York: John Wiley & Sons. p. 28, 35.


30

One outcome of what Landreth referred to as “this remodeling activity”48

was a

continuing association with the departments of Architecture and Landscape Architecture,

where Landreth regularly spoke to students on requirements for buildings and play areas

for young children. Landreth collaborated with Howard Moise, a member of Berkeley’s

School of Architecture, on an article in Progressive Architecture, “Unit Plan for Nursery

Schools.”49

In The Education of the Young Child, Landreth outlines considerations that should govern

the planning and equipping of any nursery school. It reads like a blueprint of the Harold

E. Jones Child Study Center: “adequate outdoor space… yard equipment which

encourages development of different levels and types of motor skill …easily accessible

and functional storage shelter for toys and yard equipment affected by the weather…

some provision for water play…play shelter which provides both semi-and complete

shelter…adequate storage space for children’s use which is both functional and

decorative… aesthetic appeal” ( her terse comment: “the opportunities which

furnishings, equipment, and their arrangement offer to introduce color, form, and design

are seldom fully realized”) “…indoor equipment [provision for art, music constructive,

social and dramatic play]… storage space for supplies not in constant use…, well-lighted

locker room providing individual locker space for each child adjacent to the bathroom,

playroom, and outdoor space… bathroom with adequate lavatory and toilet facilities

adjacent to locker room, playroom, and outdoor space… adequate facilities for children’s

resting, and offices for staff and facilities for physical examination and testing

program”.50

In 1943, Henry J. Kaiser invited key figures in child development studies, including

Catherine Landreth, to his shipyards to set up ideal facilities and programs so workers

could build ships without worrying about the safety and health of their children.51

Landreth designed the child care center at the Kaiser shipyard in Richmond,52

which,

along with the center in Portland, Oregon, yielded valuable research results that helped

48

Landreth (1982) p. 2.

49 Landreth, Catherine & Howard Moise. (1949). Unit Plan for Nursery Schools. Progressive

Architecture, 30( 3), March, pp. 79-83.

50 Landreth, in collaboration with Katherine H. Read. Education of the Young Child: A Nursery School Manual, John

Wiley & Sons, New York, 1942, pp. 24-32.

51 “Wartime shipyard child care centers set standards for future.” A History of Total Health: Kaiser Permanente

History Blog: Catherine Landreth. http://www.kaiserpermanentehistyory.org/tag/catherine-landreth/

52 Maritime Child Development Center, Richmond, California. Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places,

Prepared by Katherine Petrin, Architectural Resources Group, San Francisco, May 2004. At http://www.nps.gov/pwro/rori_library/Nat%20Reg%20Maritime%20Child%20Dev%20Center.pdf


31

fuel the study of early childhood education for decades after the war. The Landreth-

designed Maritime Child Care Center is now part of the Rosie the Riveter WWII

Homefront National Historic Park and offers additional foreshadowing of the Harold E.

Jones Child Study Center with a long, low building profile, a flat roof, long expanses of

horizontal ribbon windows, flat canopies over doors, classroom exits onto a play yard

through a set of double doors, and child-sized bathroom facilities and drinking

fountains.53

Maritime Child Care Center: Child Study Center: Children’s bathroom

Child-sized sinks

Landreth acted as an advisor to the State Departments of Education and Social Welfare

on programs and standards for state supported child care centers, and, at the national

level, to the Office of Educational Opportunity on Head Start programs.54

She was in

demand as a consultant to boards of education, to curriculum planners, and to Head Start

administrators, both in California and elsewhere.55

Landreth remained at Berkeley throughout her professional career, in the Department of

Home Economics until 1958, thereafter as Professor of Psychology until her retirement in

1964. Her research fell mainly into three broad areas, and in all three she was concerned

53 Maritime Child Development Center, Richmond, California. Nomination to the National Register of

Historic Places, Prepared by Katherine Petrin, Architectural Resources Group, San Francisco, May 2004.

At http://www.nps.gov/pwro/rori_library/Nat%20Reg%20Maritime%20Child%20Dev%20Center.pdf

54 Landreth (1982)

55Almy, et al. (1995)


32

with increasing the scientific rigor of investigations in a field that had typically been

descriptive and anecdotal. (1) Early childhood education: She and her students

conducted careful observational studies of teacher-child and child-child interactions. Her

study of incidents of children's crying is still cited. (2) Social perception: Best known are

a series of investigations to trace the origins and development of young children's social

attitudes and prejudices. Landreth found that prejudice is related to parents' education,

and that children as young as three years show prejudice based on skin color. These

studies were among those that influenced the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision against

segregated education. (3) The place and value of the preschool in a comprehensive

program of public education: A statewide survey on which Landreth collaborated led in

1947 to a legislative decision to finance child-care centers for children of working

mothers.

In addition to a substantial number of shorter publications, Landreth authored three

classic books that were influential in shaping the scope and nature of early childhood

education: Education of the Young Child (with Katherine Read), 1942; The Psychology of

Early Childhood, 1958; and Preschool Learning and Teaching, 1972.

In December of 1958, Landreth asked to be relieved of her appointment as Director of the

nursery school. One reason for this request was that, with the planned phasing out of the

Department of Home Economics (and with it the child development major), the whole

purpose and function of the new Child Study Center, in Landreth’s view, had changed.56

She remained in communication with Esherick in the planning of the Center, even during

a Fullbright research year in New Zealand, and collaborated with Jones Child Study

Center teachers in one research project and in teacher training as a professor of

psychology.57

Landreth died in her Berkeley home in 1995. Esherick would say of

Landreth: “She was one of those people who just really lived for the kids. Her approach

was direct and with a very strong reality to it . . . there was something very fundamental

about what she did, and direct about what she was up to.”58

At the Child Study Center, Esherick, Landreth and Jones created a physical space

tailored to the interests and abilities of preschoolers, while providing for the multiple and

not always congruent needs of researchers conducting experiments with child subjects,

the needs of teachers with educational objectives, and the needs of the children

themselves.

56 Landreth (1982), p. xi.

57Sanders, Hannah. (1991). The Institute of Human Development Oral History Project. Hannah Sanders:

An Interview with Hannah Sanders, M.A. Interviews Conducted by Vicki Green, Ph.D. on July 27, 1982.

Regents of the University of California.

58 Esherick (1996)


33

BACKGROUND

Designing for Children

The Museum of Modern Art’s Modern Architecture : International Exhibition ( 1932)

featured Austrian-American architect Richard Neutra’s model of public schools for

Southern California, where mild climate and abundant space rendered the East Coast

multi-story brick and stone unnecessary.59

A Southern California earthquake in 193360

led to designs featuring the safety of lightweight single-story construction, including “a

dynamic flow between interior and exterior environments” and the structural innovations

of sliding glass walls opening to individual patios that extend teaching space outdoors.61

In the aftermath of World War II, “many designers sought to recover a lost innocence

embodied in the spontaneity of children’s art , and to emulate the constructive, creative

impulses of children’s play. Charles and Ray Eames in California … led the way in

letting ‘the fun out of the bag’ through …toys and furniture.62

A pair of Eames chairs for

children remain in the Harold E. Jones Child Study lobby to this day.

Two Eames children’s wire chairs Lobby of the Child Study Center with Eames Chairs

By the early 1960’s, a playground movement was taking place in the United States.

Inspired by “the radical junk/adventure playgrounds pioneered by Carl Theodor Sorensen

in Copenhagen in 1943 during the German occupation,” this design evolution spread to

the Netherlands and Britain in the 1950’s and 1960’s63

and to Berkeley in 1979 , whose

59

Kinchin, Juliet and Aidan O’Connor. (2012). Century of the Child: Growing by Design. New York: The

Museum of Modern Art, p. 105.

60

On March 10, 1933, an estimated magnitude-6.3 earthquake hit Southern California. The Long Beach

earthquake killed 115 people and damaged buildings throughout the region. Long Beach 1933 Earthquake.

Los Angles Times Archive, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-longbeach_1933earthquake-

pg,0,3546233.photogallery. 61

Kinchin & O’Connor (2012), p. 105 62


Kinchin & O’Connor (2012), p. 242


34

own adventure playground is still in active use. "The simplicity of the concept is still

startling," writes Susan Solomon in 2005 in American Playgrounds. “ …Children became

the self-directors of everything hat they produced.” In this connection, Solomon

references the Child Study Center design: “ Esherick allowed for a flowing space to

unite the interiors and exteriors…This gave kids as much freedom as possible. [His]

goal, inspired by the curriculum of the school, was to maximize child-directed

exploration."64

The Child Study Center design foreshadows landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg (1970

Play and Interplay) and architect Richard Dattner’s (1969 Design for Play) advocacy “of

experiential, active play encouraged by diverse component structures or zones and

manipulable materials such as sand and water.”65

Landreth, in 1958, prefigures Dattner’s

adult play facilitators and “loose parts” as she articulates the need for component

structures and zones both outside as well as inside. In 1958 Landreth sums up the

physical environmental factors for young children:

“Reports of young children’s indomitable urge to exercise emerging motor skills suggest

that their environment should provide ample and safe opportunities for such activity.

Evidence that they spend the greater part of their time in contact with materials of some

sort, and that they tend to assault their playmates when materials are in short supply,

further suggests the importance of manipulable materials. The character of materials in

a child’s environment, whether they are abstract or representative, is also a factor in the

activity they stimulate. More thematic or imaginative play [is] evoked [by materials]

that represent abstractions rather than exact replicas. One regrets, therefore, the constant

elaboration of amusement parks for young children, by adults with little understanding of

what amuses or interests a young child.”66

In Western Architect and Engineer (1961), Esherick describes the Harold E. Jones Child

Study Center: “The exterior is fuzzy. You are never quite sure where the building is, and

so you have something to be curious about. There is no big imposing entrance either for

the children or the staff and visitors. The building actually fell into place in a natural way

in response to fixed problems of circulation, space, and light. We were concerned all the

way through more with the children than with the adults who would be using it. We

wanted the building to be relatively non-suggestive in form and color, so that the children

would do what they wanted to, but different from their environment at home.”67

Some Child Study Center teachers also conducted their own classroom research, tracking

the children’s interpretation of the environment. These teachers were familiar with the

groundbreaking research work of Robin Moore from UC Berkeley’s School of

64

Solomon, Susan. (2005). American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space. Lebanon, NH:

University Press of New England, pp. 12-13 & 121. 65


Landreth, Catherine. (1958). The Psychology of Early Childhood. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 385.

67

Western Architect and Engineer (1961), p.25


35

Environmental Design and his 1971 Environmental Playground in the nearby Berkeley Unified School District Washington Elementary School68 as well as with Jay Beckwith’s designs of “ramps, tunnels, bridges, ladders” in a do-it-yourself movement of local community organizing.69 By the 1980’s teachers were finding that the site’s design was influencing their research. A series of play yard studies, initially an investigation into the replacement of a deteriorating climbing structure and the low use of one focal activity area by children, expanded to explore how social and ecological elements influenced not only children's play behavior, but the children’s own understanding of the meaning of this play environment.70

Child Study Center play yard showing activity centers/focal areas71

68 Moore, R. & H. Wong. (1997). Natural Learning: The Life History of an Environmental Schoolyard. Berkeley, Calif.: MIG Communications. 69 Hewes, Jeremy Joan. (1975). Build Your Own Playground! Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. This book showcases Jay Beckwith’s designs on the West Coast. 70 Scales, B. (1987). “Play: The child’s unseen curriculum.” In P. Monighan-Nourot, B. Scales, B., Van Hoorn, with M. Almy, Looking at children’s play: A bridge between theory and practice. New York: Teachers College Press, pp. 89-103; Perry, J.P. (2001). Outdoor play: Teaching strategies with young children. New York: Teachers College Press; Tracy, R. (2003). Play and play environments. In Harold E. Jones Child Study Center’s 75th Anniversary Symposium. University of California, Berkeley, CA. 71

Van Hoorn, Judith, Nourot, Patricia Monigham, Scales, Barbara, & Alward, Keith. (2011). Play at the Center of the

Curriculum (5th Edition). Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson Education Inc., p. 77.

35






35







36

The school remains one of the longest continuously running child study centers in the

continent, attracting researchers and visitors both nationally and internationally from a

variety of disciplines. Research psychologist and Child Study Center administrator

Nancy Bayley crafted the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (a growth measurement

device) in part at the Child Study Center. Bayley received multiple honors and awards

for her work, including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1966 - the

first woman to receive this award.72

Sociologist William Corsaro spent over a year in the Child Study Center play yard

collecting data for his Friendship and Peer Culture (1985). Doctoral students, under the

direction of U.C. professors like Elliot Turiel, Millie Almy, Larry Nucci (Graduate

School of Education); Jonal Langer, Fei Xu, and Alison Gopnik (Psychology); Thomas

Laqueur (History); Thomas Boyce and Abbey Alkon (School of Public Health); Sharon

Inkelas and Keith Johnson (Linguistics); and Susan Ervin-Tripp and Dan Slobin

(Psycholinguistics) have been among those using the observation and testing facilities for

studies in social domain theory, moral development, origins of intelligence, causal

learning and theory of mind, history of child study, children’s self-regulation, language

acquisition, communication and development. U.C. undergraduates conduct research for

their honors theses at the Center, where education classes meet on a regular basis.

Students or staff from other institutions use the Center for training or observation

purposes: in 2012-13, for example, observers came from San francisco StateUniversity,

Merritt College, Children’s Hospital, Nightingale Vocational Nursing Program, and St

Mary’s College. ( Harold E. Jones Child Study Center Activity and Use archival records)

Thelma Harms taught at the Institute of Child Welfare’s Nursery School and went on to

be the Head Teacher at the Harold E. Jones Child Study Center during its final design and

construction stage. Harms was intimately involved in evaluating blueprints and

responding to architectural design choices. Her influential work in environmental

assessment, incubated during her 15 years at the Child Study Center, has had a major

impact on educational practice with the development of her Environmental Rating Scales

for early childhood settings now in use worldwide.73

Child Study Center teachers have

generated important contributions to knowledge about early childhood education,

physical environments for children, and the central role of play in young children's social

and intellectual development based on research stimulated by the Harold E. Jones Child

Study Center design-in-use.74

72

Nancy Bayley: IHD Members of the Past, at: http://ihd.berkeley.edu/bayley_profile.html

73

Harms , T. , Clifford , R. M. , & Cryer , D. (1989, 1998, 2003, 2005 ). Early Childhood Environmental

Rating Scale, Revised, Updated . New York , NY : Teachers College Press. 74

Harms , T. , & Tracy , R. ( 2006 ). “Linking research to best practice: University laboratory schools in

early childhood education.” Young Children , 61 ( 4 ), 89 – 93; Perry , J. P. (2011). “Outdoor play.” In Van

Hoorn, J., pp. 289-316; Perry, J.P. & Branum, L. (2009, Fall). “Sometimes I pounce on twigs because I’m a

meat eater”: Supporting physically active play and outdoor learning. American Journal of Play, 2(2), 195-


37

Joseph Esherick advocated for basing architecture on “what is alive and vital in our

culture .” The Harold E. Jones Child Study Center continues its vitality of design. As

recently as 2012, the American Educational Research Association, in a Special Issue of

Early Education and Development on University Laboratory Preschools reference the

Child Study Center as “uniquely positioned as a setting for the intensive study of teaching

and learning . . ideally suited for innovation in early education and care,”75

and includes a

design-inspired research report by Child Study Center teachers.76

In 2012, the World

Forum and the Global Collaborative Conference “OnDesign for Children” featured the

Harold E. Jones Child Study Center for its space, design and pedagogy.77

Ning de Coninck-Smith, referring to design for “lived lives of children,” says of the

Harold E. Jones Child Study Center: “Seen from a distance of more than forty years, it is

not the building’s aethetic qualities that strike us most, even though it is a handsome

institutional building. It is the centre’s transparency and panopticon character that

catch’s the eye as well as the inbuilt tensions between the ‘being’ space of childhood and

the ‘knowledge’ space of research, between having a regard for children and keeping an

eye on children. . . [T]he inbuilt tensions which we find in this building . . . reflect the

modern view of childhood, in which consideration for play and learning, and for the

child’s own develoment as opposed to that planned by adults, represents constant

dilemmas.”78

The Children’s Programs

U.C. Berkeley’s Institute of Child Welfare was founded in 1927 with a grant from the

Laura Spellman Rockefeller Memorial for the purpose of conducting research studies in

child development, adolescent guidance, parent/child relations, health and nutrition. The

Memorial established similar research centers at the Universities of Minnesota and

Toronto, at Teachers’ College Columbia, and Yale, ; Berkeley’s was to be the only

214.; Scales , B. , Almy , M. , Nicolopoulou , A. , & Ervin-Tripp , S. (Eds.). ( 1991 ). Play and the social

context of development in early care and education. Part II: Language, literacy, and the social worlds of

children. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, pp. 75–126.

75

Elicker, James and Barbour, Nancy. (2012). “Introduction to the Special Issue on University Laboratory

Preschools in the 21st Century.” Early Education and Development, 23, p. 141.

76

Scales, Barbara, Perry, J. & Tracy, R. (2012). “Creating a classroom of inquiry at the University of

California at Berkeley: The Harold E. Jones Child Study Center.” Early Education and Development, 23:

165-180. 77

2012 International Working Forum OnDesign for Children “Study Tour: Space, Design and Pedagogy.

The Harold E. Jones Child Study Center,” June 27, Berkeley, California; Jane Perry, Rebecca Tracy, &

Barbara Scales. 2012. “Design that Supports a Social Ecology of Children’s Learning: The Harold E. Jones

Child Study Center.” 2012 International Working Forum OnDesign for Children. June 27, Berkeley,

California.

78

Coninck-Smith, Ning de. (2005). “The Panopticon of Childhood: Harold E. Jones Child Study Center,

Berkeley, California, 1946-1960.” Paedagogica Historica, (41): 4&5, August, p. 505.


38

Rockefeller-funded center on the West Coast. The first director was Herbert Stoltz, MD;

Harold E Jones came from Columbia to act as its Research Director.

The Institute organized a Nursery School79

so that students and researchers could

observe children and evaluate the effects of teaching and social experience . Its first

Director was Pearl Crawford ; Professor Catherine Landreth became Director in 1938.

From 1927 to the spring of 1960 this Nursery School shared space in “the old LeConte

House” 80

on Bancroft Way with the Institute, whose projects soon filled the house to

overflowing. Thirty children were enrolled, primarily occupying the garage and the

large back yard. Most children attended 9:00-12:00, with a smaller group enrolled in the

afternoon.

A good deal of attention was given to children’s physiological development—height,

weight, cranial circumference, --and parents were expected to keep records of eating,

sleeping, illness and elimination patterns. It quickly became known as a desirable

preschool for Berkeley children. Families were encouraged to enter their children as

infants and to participate in research on their child’s physical growth and cognitive/social

development from early infancy on, as well as to attend parenting classes . Data

collected was merged and compared with similar data collected from the wider

community. “The ‘alumni’ return each year for a physical and a mental test.”81

By 1957 Boalt Law School was expanding into the area and the Institute was outgrowing

its accommodation as increasing numbers of U.C. students competed for space with

other research projects . The Institute, now the Institute for Human Development

(IHD), moved to Tolman Hall, and the Nursery School was re-created on Atherton

Street at the brand-new Harold E. Jones Child Study Center (1960), expressly designed

as both a nursery school and a center for research in child development.

When the Child Study Center was designed, its twin classrooms were intended to allow

for comparison of two demographic groups or of different teaching methods. But by

1960 the University had phased out degrees in Child Development and Early Childhood

Education. In these circumstances, Catherine Landreth proposed making one of the

classrooms available to the Berkeley Unified School district (BUSD) whose popular

Parent Nursery program , administered by BUSD’s Adult Education Program, consisted

of several parent co-ops with a trained director at each site82

. This arrangement had the

effect of bringing a community-based cohort of 3 and 4 year olds (and their families) into

the research setting of the Child Study Center along with the predominately University-

based population of the Nursery School in the east classroom. The west classroom was

79

Jones, M.C. (1991), p.22.

80

Bayley, Nancy. (1982). “Interview conducted in 1982 by Vicki Green, Institute of Human Development

Oral History Project,” deposited in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, p.4

81

“The Nursery school”: Bulletin No 8, Institute of Child Welfare, University of California, no date 82

Landreth, Catherine (1982), p.11


39

thus staffed primarily by parents enrolled in an Adult Education class working under the

direction of a credentialed teacher, the east by a professional Head Teacher and graduate

student Teaching Assistants. Both classrooms offered a morning program (9:00-12:00)

for 24 3-year-olds and an afternoon program (1:00-4:00) for the same number of 4-year

olds. An additional program for 2-year-olds and their parents was occasionally offered

by the Parent Nursery as well.

By the mid 1980’s more mothers of young children were entering the workplace.

Families increasingly sought full-day child care, and enrollment in the part-day parent

nursery began to dwindle. As a result, BUSD ended its Parent Nursery program at the

Child Study Center in 1989. IHD offered the use of the west classroom to the University

Child Care Services, already operating programs for children of student families at a

number of sites on or near the campus. This additional space would allow Child Care

Services to include U.C. faculty and staff families for the first time. In September 1989

full-day care –7:45 AM-5:30 PM -- at the Child Study Center became available for 24

children of UC employees .

University cut-backs slowly reduced the extent to which IHD could continue to subsidize

the Nursery School in the east classroom. At IHD’s request, Child Care Services

assumed responsibility for that second classroom in 1994. Full–day care was now

available at the Child Study Center Preschool for 50 faculty, staff and student children,

and continues today as part of the University’s Early Childhood Education Program, a

division of U.C. Residential and Student Services. Research on child development also

continues—in 2012-13, five doctoral or post-doctoral researchers conducted studies at

CSC, and a number of undergraduates collected data for honors theses. Child research in

fact now extends to all six of the University child care sites.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SITE

The Harold E. Jones Child Study Center is significant under the following LPC criteria:

3.24.110.1b Architectural merit:

1) As an example of an architectural movement, it is an important example of

mid-20th

century school architecture designed to maximize children’s freedom of

movement and independence of choice. By making the outdoor play space larger than

the indoor classroom, (70%-30%) , and by differentiating structurally between children’s

and adult’s perceptual zones, (a three-foot high zone, rich with interest for children, and

a higher area for adult display and storage) the designers communicate expectations

congruent with a “progressive”, humanistic pedagogy.

2) As an example of architect Joseph Esherick’s more notable public work,

in contrast to his work as a domestic architect. Esherick is nationally recognized as a

major 20th

century Bay Area architect (AIA Gold Medalist, 1989).

3.24.110.2/3 Cultural/Educational Value:


40

1) As a structure identified with the University’s commitment to research in

child development , the Child Study Center is associated with studies by a number of

internationally known scholars including sociologist William Corsaro’s important work

on the sociology of childhood and developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik who with

her students continues her research on theory of mind.

2) As an ideal pre-school environment, where the design itself communicates

curricular expectations through the use of open space, adaptable to many educational

approaches and conducive to the self-directed play of children conducting their own

investigations of the world in a safe environment.

3) As an innovative outdoor play environment which has been frequently studied

by designers (notably Robin Moore and Jay Beckwith in the 1970’s) seeking to re-

configure play yards and outdoor spaces in more “natural” ways.

Jones Child Study Center: Features to Preserve

Preservation should extend to both exterior and interior features of the building

play yards and semi-shelters

visual transparency of outdoor/indoor view

fixed features in play yards (sand pits, sand kitchens, prep areas, yard storage, etc)

small paned window walls with sliding exit/entry elements

courtyards

walkway, ramp, and railing

trellises and beams, colored panels

gate and perimeter fence

public entrance, reception area, and lobby

sign

exterior walls: color and design

flat roofed building forms

landscaping and signature trees

interior features of classrooms: entryways with cubbies, children’s bathrooms;

playhouses; built-in storage; wall treatment; lighting; open floor plan with sliding

wall dividers

observation galleries

testing and research rooms


I

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“Teaching and Research Combined: Child Study Center, University of California, Berkeley,

California: Joseph Esherick, Architect.” In Building Types Study 319: Special Schools.

Architectural Record, April 1963, Vol. 133 No. 5, 174-176 (no author).

Tracy, Rebecca. (2003). “Play and Play Environments.” Presentation at the Harold E. Jones

Child Study Center’s 75th Anniversary Symposium. University of California, Berkeley, CA.,

May.


V

“Wartime Shipyard Child Care Centers Set Standards for Future.” A History of Total Health:

Kaiser Permanente History Blog: Catherine Landreth.

http://www.kaiserpermanentehistyory.org/tag/catherine-landreth/

Van Hoorn, Judith, Nourot, Patricia M., Scales, Barbara & Alward, Keith R. (2011). Play at the

Center of the Curriculum (5th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.


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APPENDIX

Figure 9 & 10: Original landscaping plan by Thomas Church, with Church’s Landscaping specifications (Esherick

Collection, Child Study Center Project, Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley).

Figure 8: Caps on perimeter fence


VII

Figure 11: Trellised walkway

Figure 13: The first courtyard with

Japanese Maple tree

Figure 14: Public Entrance

Figure 12: Transparency of classroom and

yard seen from walkway


VIII

Figure 15: The playhouse, “a

functional space for teaching”

Figures 16 & 17: The semi-shelters function as an

outdoor classroom.

Figure 18: View from observation gallery to yard


IX

Figure 19: Transparency of outside to inside and visa versa

Figure 20: Esherick contract letter from

University of California, Berkeley, July 24,

1957 (Esherick Collection, Child Study

Center Project, Environmental Design

Archives, University of California,

Berkeley).


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IVXLCDM


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Documents

Harold E. Jones Child Study Center City of Berkeley Landmark