The design phase for a major, $50 million renovation of the current GG Brown Memorial Laboratories building is now complete, and construction began summer 2014.
“Tremendous growth in the ME department is driving this project,” said Kon-Well Wang, Tim Manganello/BorgWarner Department Chair and Stephen P. Timoshenko Collegiate Professor. “The GG Brown renovation helps us realize our vision and goal of providing our students, faculty and staff with a truly world-class educational facility.”
The renovation will create a central hub for the Department, directly connected to the new research complex addition.
Academic spaces will undergo state-of-the-art improvements to develop a student-centric environment. These include co-locating student advising, a learning center for faculty-student interaction, a large and flexible classroom and undergraduate instructional spaces for design, fabrication and laboratory work to foster further collaboration. The new, innovative spaces will support the “Design, Build, Test” pedagogic paradigm.
The renovation will also create more accessible and efficient administrative spaces, and infrastructure will be updated to greatly improve effectiveness and efficiency.
“The planning and design of the GG Brown renovation is an integrated effort involving faculty, staff and students,” said Wang. “It’s a very complex project, and I’m especially grateful to professors Dawn Tilbury and Noel Perkins, previous and current associate chairs for facilities and planning, and staff members Merlis Nolan and Matt Navarre for their outstanding leadership and efforts.”
“A renovation project on this scale and occurring in an owner-occupied building takes a massive team to plan and to complete. We are grateful for the wise counsel of our ME faculty, staff and students during the design phase, to the architectural firm of Integrated Design Solutions, and to the construction management team of Granger Construction and the University’s Office of Architecture Engineering and Construction. We are also truly grateful for the strong commitment and support provided by our College of Engineering,” said Noel Perkins, Associate Chair for Facilities and Planning and Donald T. Greenwood Collegiate Professor. “The phased construction plan is expected to be completed in 2016.”
The State of Michigan has provided $30 million for the renovation, with the College of Engineering and the U-M Office of the Provost to fund the remaining cost.
