Rice to host groundbreaking for new social sciences building

Rice University will host a groundbreaking ceremony for the Patricia Lipoma Kraft ’87 and Jonathan A. Kraft Hall for Social Sciences, a new home for the School of Social Sciences, at 2 p.m. Sept. 13. The building will be named for Patti and Jonathan Kraft, the lead donors for the project.

A rendering of the future Patricia Lipoma Kraft ’87 and Jonathan A. Kraft Hall for Social Sciences.

The groundbreaking ceremony will take place at the future site of the new building, east of Tudor Fieldhouse.

The new $38 million, four-story, 73,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed by November 2019 and open prior to the spring 2020 semester. It will include classrooms, seminar and conference rooms, undergraduate and graduate student lounges and a multipurpose space that can hold nearly 300 people for guest lectures and other events.

The space will be home to the School of Social Sciences’ Sociology and Economics departments, the dean’s office, sociology lab space and the Texas Policy Lab. It will also house the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance and the Houston Education Research Consortium, which is part of both the School of Social Sciences and the Kinder Institute. The Kinder Foundation and Milton Boniuk provided financial support for the spaces for the Kinder Institute and Boniuk Institute, respectively. The Cullen Foundation and more than 35 individual donors also provided support for the building.

The architect for the project is Rogers Partners, and the general contractor is Tellepsen Builders. The building is being designed to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver certification standards.

More information on the new building is available at https://bit.ly/2Nk3vhL.