Strengthening connections to place

The project will mark the second for Höweler + Yoon at Brown. Previously, the firm designed renovations to the University’s John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, including its Sorensen Family Reading Room and Sidney E. Frank Digital Studio. The firm has also designed projects on other university campuses, including at Harvard, Yale, MIT and the University of Virginia.

Eric Höweler said Brown’s campus is distinctive for its integration with the fabric of the neighborhoods that surround it. One of the firm’s strengths, he said, is the translation of institutional missions into architecture that is specific to its setting, welcoming to its communities and deeply embedded in campus life.

“Brown has a rich history of thoughtful construction, renovation and adaptive reuse that make clear the University’s emphasis on being a good neighbor,” Höweler said. “Among the opportunities this project offers is how to make sure the building integrates thoughtfully and respectfully, connecting to the local neighborhood in ways that complement and build on the fine-grain texture of College Hill.”Equally important, he noted, will be designing a building that creates the right internal synergies to advance the work of students, faculty and staff in economics.

“One essential question we’ll explore is what might be possible when the entire economics department is unified in a single building,” Höweler said. “In addition to classrooms, offices and research areas, part of our job is to create ‘unscripted’ spaces that prompt people to linger and interact, encourage sparks to fly and spur people to work together on new projects. Imagine the extraordinary economics research, teaching and scholarship that will take place under one roof when this project is complete.”

Höweler and Yoon founded their practice in 2005. As the firm has grown, it has built a reputation for work that combines architectural innovation, technical precision and a sustained commitment to the communities its buildings serve. Its projects have received numerous awards including the Progressive Architecture Award, the Audi Urban Futures Award, the Design Vanguard Award by Architectural Record, the Emerging Voices Award by the Architecture League, as well as national and local AIA awards and honors.

Commitment to community engagement

As detailed in spring meetings with local community leaders and neighbors near the anticipated building site, the University is exploring a site along Brook Street between Benevolent and Charlesfield streets. The anticipated site is a Brown-owned interior block within Providence’s I-2 Educational Institutional zone — a designation established in 1986 to support the planned growth of higher education institutions while maintaining compatibility with surrounding neighborhoods.

The project remains in an early stage, with only a feasibility study conducted to date, and bringing aboard Höweler + Yoon will now initiate a multi-year process toward planning, funding, locating, designing and building the facility, including securing the necessary internal and external approvals. With a design team now in place, campus planners will begin assessing proposed programming for the building and evaluating whether the anticipated site aligns with that programming; and continue and expand a public engagement process that will provide ample opportunity for local community members to provide input as plans develop.

Design for building projects at Brown is deliberative, thoughtful, inclusive and iterative, and what is conceived at the feasibility stage more often than not changes substantively during and through design, Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey noted.

Before construction can proceed, the University must secure an amendment to its Institutional Master Plan, which it expects to submit to Providence’s City Plan Commission later in 2026. An in-depth community engagement process that will follow in the summer and fall will provide significant opportunity for local residents, neighborhood associations, community groups and elected officials to provide input as plans are further developed and finalized.

“We have worked diligently in recent decades to carry out the design and construction of new and renovated academic buildings in a manner that embraces and positively impacts both the campus and the neighborhoods in which we are located,” Carey said. “We’re confident that we will do so again with this project.”

The University expects the project to be funded in its entirety by donors.