Engineering Building at JPL Gets Start

Construction commenced last week on the $16-million, four-story, 170,000-square-foot Central Engineering Building at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s 155-acre facility in Flintridge-La Canada.

The structure, designed by the architectural firm of Gin Wong Associates, will house about 900 employees, including 600 now quartered in leased space outside the main complex. The design provides flexibility to reconfigure space to suit changing office needs.

Each of the top three floors are slightly larger in plan than the one below, forming “reverse terraces”--a series of overhangs supported by circular columns.

C. L. Peck Contractor is the builder. Completion is expected in July, 1986.