DESIGN FOR LIVING IN CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87-01130R000100060041-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 15, 2002
• Sequence Number: 41
• Content Type: REGULATION

-1QPor Release 2002/0 6M
f?r, living
in CIA
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to all CIA employees
We are fortunate in having a headquarters building and campus
which rank among the most attractive and interesting of all federal
establishments.
Allen Dulles, the Director of Central Intelligence from February 1953
to November 1961, was the moving force in all aspects of its creation.
He was, for instance, keenly interested in a wooded campus, and
personally marked those trees to be saved during construction.
The use, upkeep, and improvement of our buildings are important
parts of our stewardship of this property for our government and our
fellow citizens. This booklet has been prepared to help us carry out
this trust. It seeks to tell you about the environment in which we spend
so much of our lives, and how we can all help preserve it. An attractive
environment contributes to our well-being.
As good stewards, we should also note that in the long run a good
environment costs less than an ill-conceived or poorly-maintained one.
Avoiding needless expenses and waste of materials is a part of our
stewardship. Our concern for our place of work and our cooperation
with the General Services Administration, which manages our build-
ings, is imperative to success in our endeavor.
This booklet is part of a comprehensive and continuing environ-
mental plan. Following such a plan means we can more wisely spend
the limited funds available to us to make our building and campus
more pleasant, habitable, and enjoyable.
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what
is
design?
Design is a purpose, a plan which sets out to
achieve a specific goal. Design takes individual
parts and works them together so that the total
is greater than the sum of parts.
The basis for a successful institutional
environment is planned and integrated de-
sign. Our headquarters building and campus
are part of the design planned by the original
architects. The sharp lines of the building
are softened by the trees and shrubbery that
surround it. Inside, the predominant white-
ness of the walls is complemented by the
colored doors and accent panels.
An important thing about design is that,
once it has been defined and is successful,
it should not be altered indiscriminately.
Change of a basic design component should
be the subject of careful study. If it is not,
the integrity of the entire design could be
threatened.
Let's look first at the design of a part of
the building we all know most about: the
first-and most public-floor.
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Our first floor and the adjoining campus
where it's at: have been developed to provide services,
areas of special interest, and areas for
the relaxation.
first floor Our main indoor quadrangle-with its
spacious color-accented, well-lighted corridor
vistas-is an area of movement for most of
us. Bright contemporary paintings hang on
the walls. Our history is in part reflected in the portrait gallery of
previous Directors.
The Exhibit Corridor has to date housed some fifty cultural events:
traveling art exhibits, employee art shows, a pictorial recital of our
part in the Cuban missile crisis, and special displays, such as the
Escher print collection, the property of a fellow employee.
Also located on the first floor quadrangle are our Credit Union,
insurance office, and employees' store, as well as an Employee
Information Board with items of current and general interest to
all employees. Corridors off the quadrangle lead us to the North
and South cafeterias with their vaulted ceilings, long draperies, and
expanses of glass looking out on the campus.
The ticket office and the Rendezvous Room are in the North
Concourse. The Rendezvous Room provides a buffet in a relaxing
atmosphere of attractive contemporary design. It is open to employees
and guests. Receptions which formerly had to be held outside the
building can be held in the Rendezvous Room.
In the tunnel leading from the first floor to the auditorium and
bus stop is a self-service postal center. It has postal scales, stamp
vending machines, letter and package drops and a direct telephone
line to the Postal Service.
Multiple exits from the first floor encourage noontime strolling
on the campus or outdoor eating on rustic tables in the shaded area
outside the cafeterias.
From the foregoing paragraphs you can see we have developed
on our first floor an arcade effect where, without leaving the building,
you have easy access to services planned to relate to our handsome
corridors. The aim is to give you a sense of change from a purely
office environment as you move through the building.
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In general, we have been more successful
with our design for public spaces-such as public order
the first floor quadrangle-than for private and
offices. One reason for this is that public
spaces are more readily subject to an overall private clutter
discipline.
Our problems in preserving our design in
public spaces relate principally to the way we use them and keep
them up. Coffee stains, litter on. floors, and soil marks from leaning
against walls-we can prevent all these blemishes by our private
discipline.
Unlike earlier federal buildings, our headquarters building has
relatively few permanent inside masonry walls. This lets us shift
office walls in accordance with our needs for different-sized spaces.
Although in the short run these moveable partitions are less expensive
than masonry walls, they create a problem: nothing is permanent.
This leads to a continuing need for re-establishing order in our offices.
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Order is the key to design. Lack of visual
order in our offices, caused by overcrowding
the key and our inability to establish and keep stand-
is ards of order, has led to discomfort, a sense
"Order" of frustration, or even depression.
Why don't we have order? The answer in
part is our penchant for covering our walls
with assorted objects, from cartoons and
calendars to maps. They may be fun, but they're more than vaguely
distracting. You may not realize what it is that's bothering you, but
most of us are ill-at-ease in a visually disorderly atmosphere.
We should also think beyond the mish-mash of assorted things
stuck on the walls or on safes-just the plain old idea of keeping
a clean house. At CIA, to really keep house we'd have to have a
bigger char force than funds have ever permitted, and no relief on
this score is in sight. We're not the Navy: we can't all roll up our
bell-bottoms and man our brooms, but we can all do a bit of do-it-
yourself. We can each be tidy in our own offices and in the public
corridors.
Many of our offices have too much furniture. This may give you,
subconsciously, a feeling of congestion. In your office, how often
are the extra chairs-especially the big ones-used? If seldom, have
them taken away. The breathing space will astonish you.
At CIA, an office safe is to our offices what a stove is to a kitchen-
big and bulky, but necessary for the job. If we remove cartoons
taped to them, and the junk stacked on top of them, we call less
attention to them.
But ramrod sameness is not the answer: an office or work area is
a private place. You spend a large portion of your life there. You
want to surround yourself with your own things which make you
feel more comfortable: go ahead. Just remember that when you
overdo it, the result may be clutter. Clutter is the enemy of good
design. It makes space smaller: it lacks a center of interest to invite
the eye. Don't be a clutterbug.
If you have collected things abroad which mean something special
to you and you'd like to use them as wall hangings, do so. Don't
bring in everything -just a few. Test them out for a few days. If
you seem to get that cluttered feeling, take a couple back to the attic.
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 ve For Release 2002/ 07