Boston Redevelopment Authority officials approved plans for Harvard University’s 500,000-square-foot Science and Engineering Complex on Western Avenue in Allston.

Scheduled to open in 2020, the facility containing classrooms, labs and research space will house two-thirds of the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences with capacity for more than 1,800 students and faculty.
Stuttgart, Germany-based Behnisch Architekten designed the 6-story facility and 70,000 square feet of green space.

The site’s location across from Harvard Business School and Harvard’s i-lab cluster will encourage collaboration, Provost Alan Garber said in a statement. The facility also will include lab space for the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

The center is one of nine projects in Harvard’s 2013 institutional master plan, including the recently-completed Continuum apartment complex in Allston’s Barry’s Corner.