Then the architects set up drafting tables in a campus lounge and began to sketch. There, during a six-week period, students and staff dropped and made suggestions. Once a week the architects held open meetings to discuss their plans. The result was, in many ways, much what Dunn had envisioned. The courtyard itself was a student idea, and Dunn at first resisted it, arguing that for most of the year the weather would be too cold to use it.
People walk in and just stare.
HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR Dunn's handling of the school's insurance claim, the atrium might not have risen from the ashes. She hired a Chicago engineering firm, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, to assess the destruction. The engineers' tests showed that the buildings were indeed beyond repair. When representatives of the insurance company came to the school bearing their insufficient check, Dunn greeted them with a team of lawyers and engineers. They were totally taken aback.