Brown has decided on a name and design for its upcoming seven-story life sciences laboratory.
The building will be named William A. and Ami Kuan Danoff Life Sciences Laboratories following a donation from the couple. Brown also unveiled the design for the building, which will be located in the Jewelry District near the Warren Alpert Medical School.
Once constructed, Danoff Laboratories will be the largest academic lab building in Rhode Island. The building is predicted to be completed by 2027, “pending continued progress in fundraising and full construction authorization by Brown’s governing board,” according to the press release.
The University did not release a dollar amount in the press release announcing the name. One of the two Brook Street residence halls is already dedicated to the Danoffs, whose daughter graduated Brown in 2023.
The building will be 300,000 square feet, including wet and dry labs, a transparent ground-floor lobby and a publicly accessible patio and cafe. It will be connected by bridge to the neighboring Laboratories for Molecular Medicine, concentrating health research in the Jewelry District. The building was designed in collaboration between architecture firms TenBerke and Ballinger.
This most recent development comes as the three existing biomedical facilities near maximum capacity.
The building has the capacity for 75 principal investigators and approximately 700 life science researchers in total. The ground floor will include an education lab for public programs and teaching.
The building will utilize 100% renewable electricity, making it the first “net zero” emissions laboratory at the University. It will also share heating and cooling mechanisms with neighboring University buildings, which the University says will make heating and cooling more efficient.
The facility will house four primary research programs: cancer, brain science, infectious disease and aging. Research will range disciplines from biomedical engineering and artificial intelligence to RNA technology.
