The Boston-based firm Schwartz/Silver Architects has been selected to design Brown’s new Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center in Faunce House. The center will reinvigorate the building, which opened in 1904, with new areas for students to gather, study, eat, and socialize, and will include improved office and meeting spaces. The project is currently scheduled for completion in 2010.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The Boston-based firm Schwartz/Silver Architects has been selected by the Corporation Committee on Facilities and Design to design Brown’s Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center. The $15-million project will renovate Faunce House in honor of former Chancellor Stephen Robert. The center is currently scheduled for completion in 2010.

Robert provided the lead gift for the project. Three anonymous donors provided additional gifts in support of the center’s creation.

“It is an honor to have my name on this historic building at Brown – one that has served as the symbolic heart of campus for so many years,” said Robert, a 1962 Brown graduate and University chancellor from 1998-2007. “It is my ultimate vision for the Campus Center to foster a shared sense of community at the University and provide students with an inviting space where they can enjoy the Brown experience outside of the classroom.”

The center will add significantly to the quality of education and student life at Brown by bringing undergraduate students from many parts of the campus together with graduate and medical students, faculty, staff, and others in informal settings and programs. Preliminary plans for renovating the building, which opened in 1904, include a new food venue, space for a variety of student organizations, informal gathering areas, and meeting spaces that will foster interaction and collaboration by reorganizing the existing spaces; and upgrading the building systems to today’s standards.

Community input into the pre-design phase this semester will be collected from appropriate standing committees, general community forums, and an advisory committee of students, faculty and staff. 

Schwartz/Silver Architects

Founded in 1980, Schwartz/Silver Architects is a firm with a diverse and site-specific body of work. It has a national reputation in the design community, with its projects regularly earning top awards, including six AIA National Honor Awards. The firm practices in two main categories: renovations of historically significant older buildings and modern new construction. Whether the firm is working on an innovative and technologically advanced new building or transforming a historic structure by Charles Bulfinch, H.H. Richardson or Stanford White, the design method remains the same. Schwartz/Silver believes the best architecture results from a diligent and thoughtful working with the particular circumstances of a project and the human needs they reflect.

Schwartz/Silver Architects’ educational clients include Brown University, Cornell University, Princeton University, Trinity College, The University of Virginia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Louisiana State University.