The Pembroke Quad dormitories at Brown were built in the first half of the twentieth century, before the social and study spaces now expected of student housing were part of how dorms were planned. The freshmen who live around the quad had food service and library carrels at a distance, but no commons of their own. The project converts an old ballroom on the ground floor of one of the dorms into a dining commons, and the space directly above it into a quiet study room — two pieces of program the building had been missing, inserted into rooms it already had.
We worked with Brown Dining Services and a food service consultant to add two serving stations to the commons: one with a three-burner wok, the other with a pizza oven. The stations sit along one long wall under a clerestory band of photographic murals of the campus, and a colonnade and tall arched windows define the opposite wall. The middle of the room reads as one open commons but holds two distinct registers of furniture — a lounge zone of low banquettes and tub chairs, and a dining zone of counter-height tables — so that the room can be eaten in, studied in, or sat in between classes without rearrangement.
Upstairs, the study room reuses the existing room's proportions and tall windows, with high-backed lounge chairs and worktables arranged so that small groups and solo readers share the floor without crowding each other. The commons has become the most heavily used room in the freshman complex, and the food service operation runs at the same volume as the larger dining halls elsewhere on campus.
