Master plan offers suggestions for the campus decades down the road

by Tracie Sweeney

How might the Brown campus grow and change over the next several decades to accommodate its ambitious strategic and academic goals?

Last June, that question was posed to the architectural firm of Kliment & Halsband, which was hired to develop a master plan for campus that would support the Initiatives for Academic Enrichment, particularly its provisions for a greatly expanded faculty. Architect Frances Halsband led an analysis of existing buildings, land use, open space, campus history and zoning provisions, and arrived at some preliminary findings, which she shared with members of the Brown community during two meetings held April 8.

Among the findings:

• Her studies suggest that the University could add more than a million square feet in a way that would enhance the quality of the campus and preserve landscaped green space.

• Several areas south of College Hill could support certain research activities and collaborations between Brown and other institutions.

Halsband and her colleagues examined more than maps and zoning to arrive at their recommendations. Her group also explored how people get to campus and, once here, how they move around and have a sense of place. They found that major thoroughfares like Thayer and Waterman streets disconnect one area of campus from another, but that archways throughout campus help frame where we’re going.

One area that offers great potential for Brown is the path Halsband has dubbed Dumpster Walk, which runs roughly from Lyman Hall to the Pembroke campus. Using color-coded maps and illustrations, Halsband demonstrated how underutilized space along either side of Dumpster Walk has the potential to become the site of new buildings that would transform the north-south route into a more formal pedestrian avenue similar to the University of Pennsylvania’s Locust Walk.

As examples, Halsband turned to her maps and showed where a quadrangle of academic buildings could be constructed next to J. Walter Wilson Lab, and how a “true campus center” could replace the Metcalf complex of buildings at the head of the walkway. “Look at Faunce,” she said. “At least half of it is Stuart Theater. That looks more like a performing arts center to me. Imagine it as a place for students and the arts.”

These are just some of the possibilities for Brown in the next 20 years, Halsband said. But to envision the campus 50 years from now, the University may want to look south beyond its current boundaries. Brook Street and the Point Street Bridge already connect the College Hill campus to some of the University’s partner hospitals and office space in the Jewelry District. The City of Providence’s development map notes areas that will become available once Route 195 is relocated. “So if we think big,” Halsband said, Brown may want to imagine a scenario in which it collaborates with other institutions to build a stadium and athletic facilities on the waterfront.