Inside Brown’s New School of Medicine
Monday, August 15, 2011
On the corner of Ship and Richmond streets, in Providence’s Jewelry District, there is a new kid on the block. This is the new home of Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School—teeming with shiny newness and natural light.
“There is a sense of euphoria about it,” says Philip Gruppuso, MD, Warren Alpert's associate dean for medical education, with a happy relief. For the first time, the 500 students and staff at Warren Alpert, who had previously squeezed into whichever spaces they could find on Brown’s campus, have a dedicated 134,000-square-foot home.
The $45 million renovation of a former jewelry factory is now equipped with top-line facilities, labs, and classrooms. Because Brown was reusing a building that they already owned, Professor Gruppuso said that this allowed for extra funds and resources to go into configuration and quality of spaces.
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Last week, the building’s first class of students padded about its gleaming white floors, gazing up at the incandescent glass encasing their new classrooms. The nexus of the building is a central atrium that leads from the first floor up to the third; only a few light fixtures hang from the walls, leaning on the vast natural light to flood the grand corridor.
The building will allow the medical school to expand its class size by 20%, to 120 students per year. To augment the social aspect of the new campus, the building’s designers planned an academy system; 40 students from each year will be assigned to a specific lounge and an in-house academic advisor. Already, the academies have a lived-in feel: books are casually strewn about, snack food wrappers peak out of cushions, a student naps in the embrace of an armchair.
Michael McCormick, vice-president of planning, design, and construction, said that a lot of credit goes to the dedicated staff and former students who provided suggestions in focus groups. “They might not get to enjoy the fruits of their labor,” said McCormick, about those students who will have moved on to residencies elsewhere.
A bookless medical school
Some are a little startling. 222 Richmond Street is going bookless and fancy-free. Many of new first years are clutching iPads. Tablets are a mandatory addition and will offer at least half of the first-years' textbooks. The library is also promoting a paperless future; there will be a resident librarian, but the shelves in the modest room contain printers and computers but no books. The designers conscientiously located small electrical sockets throughout the building, pock-marking the walls at regular intervals.
Outside the building, a new urban park is planned for a space catty-corner to the building and developers are planning a new pedestrian bridge to connect to Brown’s campus. The streets in front of the building have been repaved, new trees flank the new sidewalks, and a new café, run by the proprietors of University-favorite Bagel Gourmet, that will be open to the public.
From jewelry to knowledge
In addition to these amenities, Mike McCormick estimates that the economic impact of the new school will boost the surrounding Jewelry District, now dubbed the Knowledge District. There will be 500 students and staff populating to this area daily. During the construction of the building, Brown estimates that it created 425 construction jobs. The basic building goods were also locally purchased—the 1,200 cubic feet of concrete and all the steel for the building was purchased and fabricated in Rhode Island.
Professor Gruppuso says that new building’s former-factory feel will have a meaningful impact on the students. “It makes for a striking environment that really reflects Providence’s history, something that I think is important. It reflects blue-collar spaces, and reminds us that being a physician requires work, and reminds us of the patients that we serve.
And,” he adds, “the space is just physically gorgeous.”
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