Wake Downtown

Get It Down(town) to a Science!

Nestled in a repurposed RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company manufacturing plant, Wake Downtown is the 151,000-square foot home of innovative teaching spaces, advanced research laboratories and project-based studios. Wake Downtown anchors three programs–Engineering, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery–in the heart of downtown Winston-Salem in a district known as the Innovation Quarter.

With Biotech Place and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine just steps away, undergraduates have the opportunity to perform research in a variety of settings. Not to mention that housed in the very same building as Wake Downtown is the Wake Forest University School of Medicine Bowman Gray Center for Medical Education, providing opportunities to collaborate with medical school faculty and students, as well as connections to clinical volunteering and shadowing.

As a host to rotating student art exhibitions in addition to courses in the arts and humanities, Wake Downtown is more than just STEM. Wake Downtown serves as an interdisciplinary hub, offering courses like Literature of the City, Movement and the Molecular, and Street Photography in the same building where Virology, Tissue Engineering, and Computer Aided Design are taught. It reimagines how a strong liberal arts background can enhance an education in Engineering and the Biomedical Sciences.

A short and convenient shuttle ride from campus, Wake Downtown brings students into Winston-Salem’s vibrant urban scene. In the downtown area, you’ll find art-walks, festivals, bike races, concerts, community yoga, and over 80 restaurants, coffee shops, and bakeries. Wake Downtown offers additional connection points to the community, with students tackling local problems through their senior capstones, using 3-D printing to produce prosthetic arms, and volunteering through our STEM mentoring programs.

Visit Wake Downtown

Tours are currently being offered on Mondays and Fridays at 1 p.m. Self-guided tours are encouraged as well, and these can be done Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Brochures and walking-tour map materials are available at our lobby desk. We have QR codes posted throughout the building, which highlight the various features of the building, the research taking place, and the academic programs housed here at Wake Downtown.

What’s next?