A new study center complex directly below the conservation laboratory will allow students, faculty, and the public to request works of art to view independently.

In addition to traditional exhibition galleries, the new space will accommodate three 1,000-square foot curricular galleries, and the building will also have seminar rooms and two lecture halls.

The decision to move most of the museum’s stored objects from the basement of the building to an offsite location in Somerville means that the renovated museum will be able to accommodate more square feet for both teaching and exhibition.

The change will also increase lag time for instructors who want to request items from storage to use in their classes. However, professors agreed that the added safety and enhanced climate-controls that offsite storage offers—as well as the freeing-up of space inside the new facility—is well worth the added wait.

“The new museum will enable objects of different kinds to mix in ways that the old museum structure didn’t,” said Kelsey, describing exhibition spaces that could interface work across historical period, geography, and medium.

“For pedagogical reasons, it’s wonderful to have this flexibility, particularly when many students now are interested in issues that fall on the boundary of old categories.”

The design also connects the museum and the Carpenter Center—home of the visual and environmental studies department—via a ramp that cuts through the museum and around to the Carpenter Center’s entrance on Prescott Street.

“We’re going to be tied to [the central museum] by an umbilical cord,” said David Rodowick, the chair of the VES department.

“It’s a very exciting time for what I call the ‘Arts Corridor’ along Quincy Street,” said Kelsey, referencing the Graduate School of Design, the HAA and VES departments, the Carpenter Center, and the Museums. “These institutions are working together in a way that’s unprecedented in my experience.”

—Staff writer Radhika Jain can be reached at radhikajain@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Kevin J. Wu can be reached at kwu@college.harvard.edu.