Psychology Building

By 1964, the Department of Psychology occupied 42,602 square feet across nine buildings, including "one located at the Airport [while] another [was] a converted dairy building which [was] leased in downtown Urbana". A new building was desperately needed, so the new Psychology Building was designed to give the department 136,000 square feet of new space with 22,800 as offices, 6,000 as classrooms, 8,300 as "instructional laboratories", 37,300 for research laboratories, and 3,600 for "warehouse storage space". [1]

Built in 1969, [2] the Psychology Building was the work of the noted architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, with initial site planning being conducted in 1965.[3] The 8-story building features an atrium that runs its full height and is flooded by natural light from ceiling skylights. A small garden with stream and waterfall occupy the center of the atrium, but the pump powering the water feature has long since passed away.

The $6,400,000 facility was funded through the Illinois Building Authority, Department of Health, Educational Welfare, and the National Science Foundation. [4]

An interesting feature of the lobby is a television screen positioned just inside the atrium, which relays the day's calendar of events. Although the display quality would suggest early 1990-era character generation hardware, as of 2004, this is one of the few buildings on campus with an updated electronic calendar display. [5]