John Street Design StudioDiscretely located at the corner of Brook and John is the design studio at 50 John St. Originally a bakery and thereafter a drop-in center for inner-city children, the building was aquired by the university in the mid twentieth century. Since then John Street has a Brown facilities building, vacant, and finally a design studio for the university design community.

Today the studio houses an integral part of the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, where a variety of theater design and architecture classes are held and where the costumes, sets, lighting, and sound design for departmental theatre produtions are brought to life. In addition, student groups such as Brown University Gilbert and Sullivan, Brown Opera Productions, and Production Workshop use the space to design and build their shows.

Further deepening the cross discipline collaborative environment, John Street Studio is also a space for local artists. Graduate students from the Multimedia and Electronic Music Experiments (MEME) program use the space, as does the Trinity Repertory Company for the design and assembly of some of its sets.

Posted at the top of the stairs is the official goal of the studio: "The John Street Studio is a home for artists and crafts people to engage one another in their common pursuit of creativity."