Going Underground

Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

When the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences (DIBS) was founded in 2007, its directors had a vision to create a multi-disciplinary, cross-school think tank to support innovation and collaboration in brain research.

The challenge: from its inception, DIBS departments were scattered across the Duke campus in disparate locations. Without shared workspaces, the program lacked opportunities for the kind of informal, spontaneous interactions which lead to creative discoveries. Without organic overlap between programs, it was harder for DIBS to feel truly interdisciplinary.

Evolving technology offered an unexpected solution. When the Levine Science Research Center was added to the campus chilled water loop, its sizeable basement chiller equipment was instantly outmoded. Removing the old chillers freed up a fair amount of space – basement space.