At the Brown University Walk, we designed a new connecting campus to link the historic Main Campus with the former Pembroke College. The Walk is a framework of five new open spaces, carefully integrated into an existing urban neighborhood, to unify disparate campus fragments. Brown's recent campus expansion has included scant open space with large academic buildings fronting on residential streets and diffusing campus life. We chose to define a new linking campus composed of a series of open spaces related directly to the historic campus core. Places were identified in the dense urban fabric that could be cleared to accommodate a meaningful sequence of open spaces and sites for new college buildings. Ultimately, several parking lots and a gas station removed and remediated, a Victorian mansion moved, and a city tunnel
accommodated and several historic campus buildings incorporated to make way for the new campus. The
greens are simple in form, strongly defined by bounding tree rows, edge
plantings, flanking walks and graded banks providing a durable campus structure that can accommodate changing conditions on adjacent sites and accept future elaboration while maintaining its basic character.
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