PROVIDENCE — Architectural renderings released by Brown University on Thursday show the Ivy League institution’s vision for what it said will be Rhode Island’s largest academic laboratory building when complete.
The seven-story, 300,000-square-foot life sciences facility planned for the heart of Providence’s Jewelry District at 233 Richmond St. is intended to someday house workspaces for some 700 researchers, whose work focuses on the myriad of intersections between aging, immunity, brain science, cancer, and biomedical engineering, among other subjects, according to university officials.
The institution is hoping to complete the project in 2027, pending fund-raising and a formal go-ahead from the university’s governing board, Brown said in a press release Thursday.
“We do have some additional steps to complete internally, including completion of fundraising, before formal construction authorization is granted by our governing board at Brown,” Brian Clark, a university spokesman, told the Globe in an email. “But mobilization of the construction site and some enabling work began this summer, so this does look to passersby as an active construction site already.”
Brown received city approvals necessary to advance the project late last year, Clark said.
Designed by the firms, TenBerke and Ballinger, the complex — to be named the William A. and Ami Kuan Danoff Life Sciences Laboratories — will feature “laboratory spaces illuminated by natural light [and] a street-level education lab accessible to the public,” Brown said in a statement.
The all-electric facility will be powered by 100 percent renewable electricity, making it among the first “net zero” lab constructions in New England, school officials said.
“Brown has bold aspirations to develop a biomedical ecosystem where innovations can move seamlessly from research and discovery to solutions with direct, real-life impact for patients and communities,” Christina Paxson, the university’s president, said in a statement. “Central to this vision is this cutting-edge research facility where Brown’s exceptional faculty, students and staff will work together to tackle some of the most daunting challenges facing human health globally.”
According to Brown, the facility is designed “to accommodate the way science will be practiced in the future,” with wet labs surrounded with glass to invite natural light and to foster a sense of connectedness between spaces. Nearby dry work areas will provide room for “work such as advanced computational analyses, an increasingly significant aspect of scientific research,” officials said.
“These will be extremely flexible laboratories that are able to morph over time as science evolves,” Terry Steelman, senior principal at Ballinger, said in a statement.
When built, the laboratories will sit across from Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School and near other Brown-affiliated labs and facilities, and will join a growing lab cluster in the Jewelry District, which will eventually include the seven-story PVD Labs — the future home of Rhode Island’s state health lab, now under construction at 150 Richmond St.
Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com.
