A New Vision of Health Campus

Expanding our footprint and our focus 

The Envirome Institute’s New Vision of Health Campus in downtown Louisville will incorporate two historic downtown buildings as well as two park spaces, the George Garvin Brown Garden and the Trager MicroForest at Founder’s Square. This development will result in a 133,000-square-foot facility dedicated to studying the impacts of nutrition, exercise and sleep on aging. The new campus will serve as the cornerstone of the Envirome Institute's human studies research. The building design will serve as a model for how our built environment can promote healthier communities, anchored by the Envirome Institute’s Urban Design Studio.  

Revitalizing downtown Louisville 

The Envirome Institute’s New Vision of Health Campus is positioned as a key experience at the heart of the revitalization efforts shared between the Louisville Downtown Partnership's 2024 Development Strategy and Mayor Greenberg's vision and support for the transformation of the city. The project is led by a steering committee composed of university leadership and Owsley Brown II Family Foundation leadership, in partnership with Louisville Metro Government and an extensive project team of design, engineering and construction consultants led by K. Norman Berry Associates Architects (KNBA). The KNBA team provides expertise in historic preservation and adaptive reuse while orchestrating a team of national leaders in air quality, daylighting, energy use, landscape and ecology. 

Greening the built environment 

The building's green landscape and cliff ecology is designed for efficient stormwater diversion, filtration and harvesting. The project received an unprecedented Louisville Metro grant to help fund stormwater management for the campus with a goal of net-zero potable water use for irrigation. 

Modeling healthy urban redevelopment  

Drawing on Urban Design Studio's local expertise and the ongoing research of the Green Heart Louisville and Trager MicroForest Projects, the project team will be guided by the public goals for the campus, evidenced-based design, the rich stories of the neighborhood and the history of the city as they complete development of the new campus. Embracing the core belief that all decisions should be made through the lens of health, we are creating both a new home for the Envirome Institute and a model for what it means to redevelop healthy urban districts across the world.  

The following facilities and programs will be introduced in stages: 

• Metabolic research kitchen designed to prepare calorie- and nutrient-controlled meals for dietary intervention studies as well as develop community food programs.
• Metabolic laboratory equipped with whole-room calorimeters to evaluate an individual’s metabolic rate throughout various daily activities and stress conditions.
• Kinetic laboratory with specialized equipment to measure physical performance and exercise capacity in relation to diet and sleep across the life course.
• Sleep laboratory able to assess the relationship between sleep, metabolism and stress over the life course.
• Urban Design Studio offices engaged in exploring innovations in urban design practices for our built environment with a focus on improving human health and wellbeing.