Earlier this month, the commercial real estate media group Bisnow and architectural firm SMMA came together to publish a piece about Providence College’s new home for its business school, the Arthur F. and Patricia Ryan Center for Business Studies. The building unites the east and west campuses and has become a destination for students of all majors when studying, grabbing a coffee, meeting up with friends, or going to class. It has become “the centerpiece of campus,” according to Bisnow.
After a design competition in which architectural firms submitted their ideas for the building, SMMA and principal John Scott were chosen to bring the College’s vision to life.
Scott’s ideas for the center called upon the concepts of crossroads and intersections and revolved heavily around wanting to unify new and old spaces. The back half of the Ryan Center is the old Dore Hall – a dorm building on campus that has not been in use in recent years. SMMA repurposed the building within a larger structure that now houses offices, classrooms, study spaces, a café, a finance lab, multiple computer labs, and large open spaces for students to gather. The firm wanted to bring “new life” to Dore Hall, according to Scott. And they did exactly that…Click to read more