In 1946 the well-known Danish educator Sofie Rifbjerg (1886-1991) travelled for six months to the USA. The purpose of her trip was to study American developmental psychology. On her way she spent some time at the Institute of Child Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. The institute had become famous because of its working on longitudinal studies of parents and children during the years of the great Depression. Affiliated with the institute was an experimental kindergarten, where the staff could study and test the development of the pre-scholars. Until 1960 the Institute as well as the child study centre was housed in a former middle-class home. In 1957-1960 a new structure was built, designed by the Bay-area architect Joseph Esherick (1914-1998). Based on material found in the University of California archives the paper describes the story of the building design process, and how the needs of the children clashed with the needs of the scientists with the architect as an aesthetic mediator.