DESIGN FOR LIVING IN CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87-01130R000200220001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 17, 2014
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: July 9, 1984
• Content Type: PAPER

9 Al
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aesign
for living
in CIA
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ILLEGIB
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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.
W. E. Colby
Director
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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.
All 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: riave been developed to provide services,
areas of special interest, and areas for
the
first floor Our main indoor quadrangle?with its
pacious color-accented, well-lighted corridor
vistas?is an area of movement for most of
as. 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 outdocr 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 arcaee 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
the first floor quadrangle?than for private
offices. One reason for this is that public
spaces are more readily subject to an overall
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 :al 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.
public order
and
private clutter
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the key
is
"order"
Order is the key to design. Lack of visual
rder in our offices, caused by overcrowding
and our inability to establish and keep stand-
ards of order, has led to discomfort, a sense
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 \\that 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 cur 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?esTaecially 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
;1 private place. You spend a large portion of your life there. You
want to surround yourself with your OWD 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 clut:erbug.
If you have collected :hings abroad which mean something special
to you and you'd like ta 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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?
In the long run. the upkeep and preserva-
tion of our environment Or a design is the-
job of each one of us. It is a person who
destroys the environment or violates tile de-
sign, MA SOIlle outside force. If wN..401.
pai t. we all benefit. 'When a few ari4hmight- "
less, all stiffer.
NVe have one of the most handsome hujhd-
logs campus settings in the federal ci).10-::
plex, which WC hope one day will house -all
of our employees. Our master plan for keep-
ing high standards of design. order, and:
CII '(lines has been praised by important
visitors from other branches of government.
We have a email-mit ig task of improvement.
NVe hope your pride will prompt you to help
US Ill lprove. l)o you have any ideas? I)o- you
have any complaints ( with your suggestion'
fin an improv('ment, please)? If you do, let
the Fine Arts Commission know, with either
a note or a phone call. The address is: Room
7B44 Headquarters. The phone extension is
7505.
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ROUTING AND TRANSMITTAL SUP
15 November 1984
TO: (Name, office symbol, room number,
building.Agency/Post)
I Initials
Date
L EO/DDA
2. ADDA
"7/4
& DDA
4.
&
Action
File
Note and Return
Approval
For Clearance
Per Conversation
As Requested
For Correction
Prepare Reply
Circulate
For Your Information
See Me
pomment
Investigate
Signature
Coordination
Justify
REMARKS
Attached handcarried to 0/DDA for DDA review.
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P(i)/1 6A-r-e cve?-71-.2-1?
DO NOT use this form as a RECORD of approvals, concurrences, disposals,
clearances, and similar actions
FROM: (Name, org. symbol, Agency/Post)
Room No.?Bldg.
Phone No.
5041-102 OPTIONAL FORM 41 (Rev. 7-76)
Prescribed by GSA
. n - gA1-59c1 ("1111) MAR (41 CM) 101-11.206
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STAT
STAT
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Quality of Life at CIA
Few government agencies have the good fortune to be located
in a rural, woodland setting such as ours, where the passing of
nature's seasons can be observed close at hand. The Northern
Virginia countryside is noted for its beauty, and the George
Washington Parkway is one of the area's most scenic drives.
For the Headquarters employee these surroundings are part
of an atmosphere that is unique to the Agency and unparalleled
in official Washington. The care and tastefulness that
governed the site selection and design of the building are
obvious to visitor and employee alike. The Parkway on one side
and Dolley Madison Highway on the other serve the two
entrances, yet no traffic can be seen or heard from the
grounds. Carefully trimmed grass and trees border roadways
that curve easily through the compound with a minimum of
corners or signs. Shrub and flower plantings, professionally
designed and tended, provide changing vistas year-round. Even
a nature walk wends its way quietly through one of the wooded
areas for those who prefer a closer touch with the untrimmed
and untrammeled.
The Headquarters Building, designed by Harrison and
Abramowitz and completed in 1959, was carefully designed to fit
comfortably into these natural surroundings. The repeating
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lines of the recessed windows are broken only by the
cantilevered portico at the front and the low arches of the
. cafeteria in back. The rectangular expanse of the upper floors
sits comfortably on the curving form of the enlarged first
floor. Natural light enters offices not only along the facade
but through three major courtyards, providing a maximum of
exterior rooms.
Inside the building, the size and spaciousness of the
exterior setting is immediately obvious in the design of the
front hall, where the glass doors of the entrance face the
central courtyard windows. The corridors surrounding the
courtyard have been hung with a series of oil portraits of
former directors and a selection of Washington Color School art
generously loaned by Mr. Vincent Melzac, a noted collector.
These are placed to take best advantage of the natural light
from the inner windows.
In addition to the artwork in these corridors, the Exhibit
Corridor (1D) serves as a permanent display area for a rotating
series of shows and collections. These are loaned by
organizations such as the Smithsonian, as well as by individual
employees. The annual exhibits of employee art and employee
photography are shown here.
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An interesting decor surrounds each of the first floor
elevator wells. Due largely to employee effort, early maps of
Rome, London, St. Petersburg-Leningrad and Paris have been
enlarged and mounted on these walls. Also, each level of many
stairwells is marked with numerals in different languages. For
those interested, the languages, starting from the first floor,
are: Cambodian, Amharic, Arabic, pseudo-French, Cyrillic,
Mandarin and Thai.
Bulletin boards and showcases of announcements and awards
are placed in the hallway around the public service area of the
first floor. Additional displays of posters are carefully
limited to specific spaces in entries and elevator areas.
The Work Environment
As one moves from the public areas of the building into
work areas the sense of unified design is maintained by the
introduction of brightly colored doors and accent panels
complimenting the off-white walls. Signs which utilize
photographic film for easy updating identify the offices.
Those familiar with the Headquarters Building are well
aware of the great variety of style and decor with which Agency
personnel surround themselves. They are also aware of the
difficulties involved in creating a pleasant environment in
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what are often crowded conditions. While it is impossible to
address the specifics of each work area, there are certain tips
that can contribute much to improving the space we have.
To the extent possible, the clean lines and open space
which are the predominant features of the building's design
should be reflected in the arrangement of each office. Because
many rooms and work areas are small, it is particularly
important that they be free from clutter.
The first step toward designing the best work environment
is to make a critical inventory of the furniture, eliminating
all but the most necessary. Passag ways should be cleared,
bookcases cleaned out of outdated or unused material and file
and safetops cleared of unnecessary items.
A common office practice is to hang papers on walls and
partitions where they are available for ready reference.
Although this is often useful information, the result can look
chaotic. To the maximum extent possible, these papers should
be removed and consolidated into readily available notebooks.
This step by itself can contribute significantly to a sense of
added space and restful surroundings.
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Although the Agency's limited supply of wall hangings is
used to good advantage in many offices, employees can provide
additional variety and interest by supplementing these with
their own reproductions or originals. A tasteful collection of
these, carefully hung, can add an element of depth and
personality to the surroundings.
Unlike furniture or posted notices, an office rarely has
too many plants. They add warmth to large and small rooms
alike and are inexpensive to buy and maintain. Most house
plants will thrive Under fluorescent lights and few, if any,
need a green thumb to survive. They are a sure way to provide
color and depth. However, for the most part plants must be
supplied and cared for by employees.
The building and grounds of CIA reflect the quality and
professionalism of its employees. Each office space can and
should reflect those same standards. The use of open space,
clean lines and tasteful, imaginative decoration can add new
dimensions to the atmosphere of the work environment.
Headquarters Expansion
For the next few years the normally tranquil Headquarters
area will be disturbed by a major construction project. Smith,
Hinchman & Grylls has designed an annex to our building which
will compliment and extend the Lines of the original structure
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and preserve much of the wooded environment. It will be built
into the hillside west of the existing cafeteria and will
consist of two low towers connected by an atrium. The outer
surface of the office towers will consist of horizontally and
vertically divided green tinted glass, designed to be
compatible with the existing Headquarters facade. The atrium
itself will contain an employee services concourse and will
lead to an exit to the new parking building. The main entrance
to the complex will remain in the original building.
The design of the courtyard space between the two buildings
preserves the existing large trees near the cafeteria. Its
plantings, park benches, tables, and pathways will be in full
view of the atrium of the new building as well as the existing
cafeteria and provide an attractive space for employees' use.
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In the relatively few years of its existance, CIA has established itself
as being among the better, if not the best government agencies. The quality
of work and the quality of life expected by its employees is unsurpassed in the
US Government. And because CIA employees participate to the extent they do in
the management of the Agency, these expectations are realized to an unusual
degree.
The pursuit of excellence is not a new idea at CIA, it is a tradition;
a tradition carried on by those hired to manage and those who take part voluntarily
by their suggestions, their membership in activity clubs and participation on
committees such as the Fine Arts Commission. The purpose of this book is to
strengthen and sustain those traditions and to maintain our reputation as
the best place in town to work. It is also to encourage the ideas and participation
of all employees in creating a work environment worthy of the intelligence profession.
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