Plans for a $3 million addition to Iowa State’s College of Design were approved by the state Board of Regents last week, and construction of the Design Center additions should begin in the spring.

Baldwin White Architects of Des Moines have created a schematic design and budget for the addition, which will be located on the southeast wall of the Design Center and will include such features as a new auditorium and major improvements to the college’s atrium.

Mark Engelbrecht, dean of the College of Design, said the additions will be “a threshold project, which will bring much-needed additional space as well as a technological infusion to the College of Design.

“We’ve always been short of space [at the Design Center], and the addition will provide us with meeting rooms and review space that we don’t have right now,” he said.

One major addition will be a 250-seat auditorium for large-group presentations and university events.

The addition will change the look of the center in a way that is dramatic but not drastic, Engelbrecht said.

“All construction will be attached to the exterior of the building,” he said, “so interior disruption should be minimal.”

Engelbrecht hopes the new auditorium and added technologies will draw more than just design students to utilize the Design Center.

“This project should begin to ‘center’ the college, to make it more of a gateway for the university,” he said.

“We’re really out here on the fringe [of campus]. Hopefully, the addition will make the design facilities more readily available to the rest of the university,” he said.

Another highlight of the project will be the construction of a visualization laboratory.

“The visualization laboratory will be a high-end lab containing machines for computer design,” Engelbrecht said.

A number of graduate studios will be clustered around the new laboratory. With these additions, the fifth floor will become “a think tank for our most advanced computer-driven processes.”

Engelbrecht said the Design Center turns 20 years old in the spring of 1999, and his goal is to celebrate that anniversary in the new auditorium.

Other planned features of the project include:

• New in-studio computing areas, a distance education facility and an Office of Information Technology for faculty development.

• Creation of additional shop and studio space.

• Development of an exterior plaza and upgraded design project review areas.