The Sunless Building of Brown University
Every student at Brown University knows of, or has heard engineering students complain about, the infamous building: Barus and Holley. Despite the rigorous engineering curriculum that forces most engineering students to spend huge portions of their days in the building, its design does not exactly alleviate the students’ stress due to the lack of windows, and therefore, sunlight.
It makes sense for some portions of the building to be windowless: some of the engineering experiments are sensitive to light and must be performed in a controlled environment. However, even the sections of the building that does not have to be lightless have small or no windows, as shown in Figure1. The aesthetic qualities of both the exterior and the interior of the building would increase significantly if there were bigger windows.
The floor layout of the Barus and Holley has a strange structure: the hallways encompass the interior of the floor, and all the lecture halls are contained within them. Due to this structure, none of the lecture halls have windows and relies only on artificial lighting.
Not only is this design counterproductive for the students, but it also wastes a lot of energy that could be saved during the day from natural lighting. If there were more windows on the building, it would save energy, make everything more aesthetically pleasing, and also contribute positively to the mental well-being of engineering students.