The Corporation of Brown University selected the internationally renowned architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro to design the new Creative Arts Center. The proposed 35,000 square foot building, housing a recital hall, multimedia lab, and recording studio, is slated for completion in 2010.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The renowned architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, known for its work on the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston and the High Line in New York City, has been selected by the Corporation of Brown University to design the University’s new Creative Arts Center.

The Creative Arts Center is intended to advance new directions in teaching and research that cross the boundaries of traditional disciplines and to encourage the creation of new art forms and new approaches to collaborative work. The proposed design for the 35,000-square-foot building includes a 250-seat recital hall and 35mm screening facility, a recording studio, multimedia lab, gallery space, and production spaces for multidisciplinary art. The project’s $45-million fund-raising goal includes construction costs and an endowment for operating and maintaining the building.

“The arts have contributed significantly to Brown’s reputation as an institution which places the highest value on creative and independent thinking,” said Richard Fishman, professor of visual art and director of the Creative Arts Council at Brown. “President Simmons’ program for academic enrichment was the catalyst for the arts faculty to dream large and imagine a singular initiative which would bring significant value to Brown. The program envisioned for the Center will create a new paradigm for the arts in higher education. Brown is the natural place for this to happen, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, with extensive experience mediating the interface of art and architecture, are the ideal architects to make this vision a reality.”

The Corporation also approved 154 Angell St. as the site for the Creative Arts Center. The new building will border The Walk, a series of linked green spaces that will provide a connection between Brown’s main campus and the Pembroke campus. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2009, with expected completion in late 2010.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Diller Scofidio + Renfro is an interdisciplinary studio that fuses architecture, the visual arts and the performing arts. Their work encompasses architecture, urban design, temporary and permanent site-specific installations, multimedia theater, electronic media, and print. The firm recently completed the new home for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. They are currently working on an variety of projects for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and creating the master plan and architectural design for the High Line, an urban park situated on an obsolete elevated railway, stretching 1.5 miles in the Chelsea district of New York, and the Hudson Riverfront Performing Arts Center in Weehawken, N.J. The DS+R studio has been awarded an AIA Design Award for the Institute of Contemporary Art and the School of American Ballet and the National Design Award in Architecture from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio were recipients of the MacArthur Foundation “genius award” in 1999-2004, the first ever given in the field of architecture.