By Jean Nayar    
Photography by Paul Warchol

Some may say being a college student is easy. But cracking the books can be tough when the study center on campus is dank and dreary. Such was the case at Providence, R.I.'s Brown University, where the Friedman Study Center had not only suffered from years of neglect but also was located in one of the least favored buildings on the college grounds. Thanks to a face-lift by New York City-based Architecture Research Office (ARO), however, the renewed study center is now the vibrant heart of the campus, enriching daily life with a mix of spaces that support different forms of study and social interaction, too.

The study center is located on the lower levels of the Sciences Library in an unloved 14-story tower, which was designed in the late 1960s in the Beton Brute style and is situated at the nexus of a commercial strip and the campus’s academic greens. On the plus side, says ARO principal Stephen Cassell, a below-ground-level space was five times larger than the building footprint and surrounded by four modest courtyards, interior spaces had good bones of board-formed concrete and slate floors, and there was a nice (albeit covered) skylight. The negatives were interior finishes and furnishings that had become shabby through the years, overgrown tree canopies in the sadly neglected courtyards, and overzealous fluorescent lighting.

After absorbing the university's mission of promoting cross-pollination among disciplines, consulting with student focus groups ("all were opinionated and all disagreed," says Cassell), and developing computer-generated value-engineering and sun studies, the architects' first step was to lobby for additional funding for re-landscaping the courtyards. Once the dollars were secured, they revitalized the 35,000-sq.-ft. study center by creating a variety of spaces that were organized in a series of gradated zones with collaborative, loud group study spaces on one end, low-key interactive areas in the middle, and quiet individual study zones on the other.

The architects also applied a light touch to the architecture so they could splurge on interior furnishings and finishes (only $1.5 million of the $6 million budget went to FF&E, the rest went to landscaping, construction, and an infrastructure upgrade). "We built less than 10 walls, pulled out areas that had been subsumed by earlier renovations, and shaped the space with furniture," says Cassell, who worked closely with project architect Kim Yao on every detail. The idea behind the spatial arrangement and furnishings, state the architects, was to develop a setting "for all of the activities that make up college life—flirting, hiding, creating, and gossiping in addition to memorizing, cramming, and discussing." As such, the collaborative areas are defined with an abstract floral-patterned carpet in chocolate brown and teal blue, indirect lighting, and translucent walls of eco-resin, which double as white boards, and are outfitted with Vitra Joyn tables and Herman Miller Aeron chairs among other streamlined furnishings. The central zone, with its orange "wheat field" carpet, is loosely cordoned off with a series of translucent vertical louvers, offering a peek-a-boo effect into casual seating areas, and including a mix of brightly upholstered lounge chairs along with low, flat upholstered "flirtstones." And the quiet study areas include study carrels set off with eco-resin panels and furnished with expansive white desks with yellow fabric-covered, sound-absorbing modesty panels.

All of the spaces, including a sun-soaked seating area known as the "tanning lounge" and a café offering eats that can be carried away and consumed anywhere in the center, were defined with sporty signage in terms the students could relate to. Simple graphic elements in each of the zones, for example, indicate the suggested volume levels—from zero to 50 decibels—for each area. These and other thoughtful touches add up to relaxed, refreshing spaces where students can work hard and also feel at home.  

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