TenBerke and Ballinger Design Brown University’s New Signature Life Sciences Research Facility in Providence’s Jewelry District

TenBerke, in collaboration with Ballinger, is designing the new 300,000 SF integrated life sciences research facility at Brown University. With Ballinger leading the project’s laboratory design, the 7-story facility will provide state-of-the-art labs and workspace for interdisciplinary research in brain science, cancer, biomedical engineering, and aging, among other disciplines. Set to become the largest academic laboratory building in Rhode Island, and one of the first “net-zero” lab constructions in New England, the Danoff Laboratories facility is poised to catalyze breakthroughs in research on the most important challenges facing human health. The signature research building will not only expand the University’s slate of cutting-edge science facilities, but also activate the public realm and create an enduring sense of place in a historic neighborhood.

The Jewelry District is undergoing a rapid transformation as the nexus of Providence’s growing knowledge economy and biomedical science sector. TenBerke’s design picks up on these characteristics while introducing new architectural ideas, such as a highly transparent ground floor that contributes to an active public realm and massing shifts and setbacks that break down the scale of the building.

As future home to a combination of wet and dry labs, and both existing and new researchers, the integrated life sciences research facility will be designed to the exacting scientific requirements for laboratory spaces while building in flexibility that empowers team science.

The site’s ambitious integration of landscape and architecture is matched by its sustainability goals. In line with Brown’s pledge to reach net-zero energy and carbon emissions by 2040, the state-of-the-art facility will be Brown’s first built project to conduct a full embodied carbon life-cycle analysis for all systems and materials. The all-electric laboratory building will be powered by 100% renewable electricity and equipped with resilient emergency backup systems.

TenBerke and Ballinger are also partnered on the construction of the Upper Science Hill Development at Yale, a new complex for quantum science, engineering and material sciences, set for completion in 2030. Together with Stimson as landscape architect, TenBerke completed Brown’s new all-electric, hybrid-CLT Brook Street Residence Halls, which welcomed the first cohort of students in Fall 2023. Previously, Ballinger completed Brown’s Sidney E. Frank Hall for Life Sciences in 2006.

In strengthening connections to its unique urban condition as much as to the broader university context, the interdisciplinary building will layer the site’s past and future to create an enduring sense of place for research at Brown, in Providence, and beyond. Pending full construction authorization by Brown’s governing board, the Danoff Laboratories facility will be delivered with a Lean Design-Build process and is targeting completion in 2027.

Read more at News from Brown.