Princeton's New Health Centre Wears Bricks Partly Made From Factory Material

A burgundy brick made by the Glen-Gery company now covers the outside of Princeton University's Frist Health Centre in Princeton, New Jersey, according to Dezeen.

The bricks are Burgundy Ponderosa Western, part of Glen-Gery's Western Series. Some of the material in them was recovered from the company's own manufacturing process, rather than being newly dug or mixed for the job.

Each brick is extruded, meaning it is pushed through a shaped opening like toothpaste from a tube before it is cut and fired. Masons lay them in a horizontal running bond, the common pattern where each row is staggered over the one below. The face has a mix of finishes: velour (a soft, slightly textured look), grooved lines, and sanded areas.

The building is a 76,500-square-foot facility, about 7,100 square metres, that opened in 2025. Princeton University's own announcement said it would be more than twice the size of the health centre it replaced. It offers holistic care and support for student wellbeing, with consultation and exam rooms, counselling rooms and offices.

The facade was designed to sit alongside Eno Hall, a Gothic-style university building finished in 1924. Dezeen says the brickwork was chosen to complement that older stone-and-brick look, so the new building does not stand apart from its neighbours.

Behind the brick, the building has mineral wool insulation, a material used to slow heat moving in and out of a building. Metal sunshades reduce how much sunlight heats the interior. Those features are part of the project's energy approach.

The architecture firm WRNS Studio lists the Frist Health Center on its own project page as a building that joins an older structure with new architecture. In an interview reported by Architectural Record, the firm describes the project as combining biophilic design, which brings natural light, plants and views of nature into buildings, with adaptive reuse, which means keeping and reworking existing structures rather than replacing them.

The project has also been recognised by AIA New York State, the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects, for those same two ideas. The Society for College and University Planning lists it among its award winners as a centrepiece at the heart of campus.

For the people who lay these bricks, the story is simpler. A university health centre now stands on a campus street, clad in a brick that was partly made from its maker's own leftover material.