Binns-Merrill Hall is home to sophisticated materials laboratories, faculty offices and classrooms, as well as drawing studios for upperclassmen in the School of Art and Design, the Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, and administrative offices for the School of Art and Design and the Inamori School of Engineering.

A two-phase, $16 million renovation project, funded by the State University of New York Construction Fund, was completed in the fall of 2001. The original structure (known as the Ceramics Building) was built in 1900 when the State Legislature created the College of Ceramics at Alfred University. That building was demolished in 1950, and replaced in 1951 by a new building that was attached to Merrill Hall, which had been built in 1932.