In preparation for the Fall 2023 academic term, Brown University shares details of its new Deborah Berke Partners-designed Brook Street Residence Halls.

Located at the southeastern edge of the University’s 143-acre historic urban campus, the 125,00-square-foot development has room for 353 beds interwoven with green spaces that enhances the campus’ connection to nearby existing structures and Providence’s Fox Point neighborhood while providing capabilities for year-round stormwater retention.

With its brick and terracotta material palette, the new halls are beholden to the older architecture of the campus and of the Federal style-rich city in passing. The split-volume residences come beset with strategic social spaces and a healthy influx of strategic natural light corridors, kitchenettes, and study nooks, especially when compared to other recent student housing proposals across the country of considerable size. This is both an all-electric and combined CLT hybrid steel design, which makes its performance in line with Brown’s 2040 net-zero commitment.

Other features include more visible and gate-free entries in rebuke of what is a traditional Ivy League design custom. Project lead Noah Biklen says it's full of “design aspects that create a sense of vitality and activity and that are appropriate to the neighborhood and the University.” Brown is anticipating that the residences will help reduce to the number of students living in private off-campus apartments to 30%.

“From the brick selected for the exterior to a roofline that is both distinctive in aesthetic but takes its inspiration from the pitched roof landscape that characterizes many Providence locations, the design choices envisioned to date are focused on creating a space that complements the surrounding neighborhood," University Architect Craig Barton said in a statement. 

Brook Street is also the firm’s second project in Providence ahead of the campus’ forthcoming Integrated Life Sciences Building. Deobroah Berke Partners has also completed dormitory projects at Princeton and Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. Brown says the new residential halls will be ready for move-in for the Fall of 2023.