Good Design on Thayer Street: Architectural Critic Will Morgan
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship sign, designed by noted Providence graphics firm of Malcolm Grear (William Morgan)
At a time when colleges and universities are commissioning starchitects to design big-ticket items such as performing arts centers and business schools, it is refreshing to discover a modest, barebones triumph inside the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at 249 Thayer Street.
Just opened this year, the NCE is Brown University's foray into the world of creating dedicated spaces where students can, in President Christina Paxson's words, "hatch ideas, launch ventures, and hone entrepreneurial skills."
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTPairing a liberal arts education with the buzzwords of business entrepreneurship seems oxymoronic. Imagine Thomas Edison or James Dyson taking classes in networking or hanging about in "venture spaces."
Nevertheless, grabbing the pole position on the fast track for the really big bucks has apparently supplanted the life of the mind for many students.
Colleges are jumping to provide laboratory-cum-board rooms suitable for planning a revolution in Silicon Valley, shaking up Wall Street, or perhaps tackling some intractable Third World issue.
So it is worthwhile to look at how Brown is addressing the recent entrepreneurship-as-academic-field phenomenon.
Although the NCE leases its 10,000 square feet above Shake Shack, across from the Brown Bookstore, the university was a part of the scheme from the outset.
Only a small percentage of the $25 million gift from alumnus Jonathan Nelson was allocated for shaping the actual physical space, so the aesthetic aspirations would seem modest.
NCE's container is just that, designed by ZDS Architecture & Interior Design (their Homewood Suites downtown is another example of the standard developer's box).
ZDS offers a hint of quality with 1/4-inch thick limestone cladding, while Brown insisted on the extensive glazing.
Inside, however, is another story.
While the university interviewed other architects, Brown wisely chose 3SIXØ Architecture, a Providence architecture-as-art firm with a notable reputation in interior design and renovation.
Oftentimes the challenges of a tight budget bring out the inventive best in designers.
Such is the case with 3SIXØ Principals Kyna Leski and Chris Bardt.
They were able to transform the core of a "core and shell" container in an imaginative and innovative way.
In addition, they were also able to bring in the fixed-price project at $20 under budget.
Movable glass panels form offices or conference spaces; individual work/study niches to right. (John Horner)
Despite the amorphous nature of entrepreneurship pedagogy, the architects took the nebulous program of "a space that could be part of the experimental/exploratory process" and turned it into the heart of their design.
"The three floors of venture spaces, office, and conference rooms," Bardt notes, "had to be adjustable and adaptable to unknown future needs."
3SIXØ's solution is a gridded field composed with a 5 foot, 6-inch module. This matrix, employed on all three floors of the NCE, provides what Leski calls "provocative flexibility."
The modular code is outlined in the carpeting. The lecture space has cork walls, and all wall surface colors are muted. It is as if the core is merely a backdrop to the fluid meetings and exchanges of ideas.
Spaces are shaped by uniform-size steel and glass panels, many of which pivot. Like a Rubik's Cube, these panels can be moved around in seemingly infinite combinations, forming offices, lecture rooms, quiet spaces. There are no corridors, or it can be all corridors. Nine soundproofed working cubicles, called niches, are the only fixed spaces.
As Danny Warshay, executive director of the NCE reports, "The flexibility of the design–the furniture and even the walls move–empowers student entrepreneurs to configure the space on the fly to meet their immediate needs."
Further, Warshay notes that 3SIXØ'S thoughtful planning "will encourage the accidental interdisciplinary collisions that lead to breakthrough insights and provide the student co-working space that helps translate these insights into successful ventures."
Furniture can be moved anywhere at any time. Contrasting carpet colors echo the basic module. Glass inserts are both transparent and opaque. (William Morgan)
The NCE represents a bold move on Brown's part. The lack of fussiness is welcome, although the idea of locating the center away from the bucolic campus and putting it amidst the bustle of Thayer Street seems a bit forced. But it provides an energizing home for certain kinds of thinkers and problem solvers.
Hubs, such as the NCE, are additions to the time-tested incubators of ideas at universities: classes, dormitory bull sessions, and solo time in the library or laboratory.
As Paxson says, "We do 'hubs' really well. Our Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship is fast becoming one of the most impactful hubs on campus."
Architecturally, 3SIXØ did this hub very well indeed.
GoLocal architecture critic William Morgan was graduated from Dartmouth with a C+ average. He has taught at Princeton, Louisville, Wheaton, and Brown.
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