We are pleased to announce that the University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy has been recognized by this year’s AIA/Rhode Island Design Award jury. The AIA/Rhode Island Design Awards Program is judged on design excellence, recognizing those to create and enhance our built environment. The building received an Honor Award, which the program defines as “for projects that show outstanding achievement in architectural design.”
The College of Pharmacy brings definition to the most significant new public space on the University of Rhode Island campus since the inception of the main quadrangle in 1895. Beginning with the sustainable demolition of an outdated, underground bunker building and the subsequent construction of the new College of Pharmacy building, a new campus quadrangle is reclaimed and transformed from inhospitable hardscape into a gracious, four-acre campus space. South of the new Pharmacy Building, what was previously a vast parking lot is transformed by introducing a new green amenity to the campus: the Medicinal Garden, a space intended to exemplify the University’s long and important history concerning the study and research of natural products.
The design of the new building unifies the University’s pharmacy program under a single roof for the first time. The building integrates two disciplines, biomedical pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacy practice for teaching pharmacy. The new College of Pharmacy building addresses the challenge of blurring the line between the exterior and interior spaces to provide a greater continuity between indoor and outdoor programs / learning environments while connecting to the greater campus community. Special constraints included mitigating a heavily contoured site with a full story of grade difference from east to west, and organizing a major site-utility redistribution, all while constructing around a continuously active academic campus.
The interconnected and stepped configuration of the neighborhoods, each supporting various research and teaching activities along the main public corridor promotes the opportunity for interaction and dialogue across departments. These spaces, at the geographical center of each floor, constitute the figurative “heart” space of the building through which the faculty and students circulate.
