General Electric’s new 300,000-square-foot world headquarters on Boston’s Fort Point Channel will combine the century-old industrial architecture of the waterfront with contemporary designs reflecting the company’s heightened high-tech focus, the lead architect said.

GE picked Gensler from a field of more than 35 architectural firms following a 10-week selection process. GE executives said they want Gensler to design a sustainable complex that encourages team-based work and connects GE with Greater Boston’s flourishing tech economy and local student population.

“The aspiration is a building that is about fostering and driving new ideas, not about housing people,” said Doug Gensler, principal in charge of the GE project and managing director of Gensler Boston.

Plans will be submitted to the Boston Redevelopment Authority in a few months in an aggressive permitting process to meet GE’s goal of occupying the facility in 2018, Gensler said. GE plans to occupy and rehab two warehouses totaling approximately 90,000 square feet currently owned by Procter & Gamble on Necco Way, and add an additional brand-new building on the 2.5-acre site.

At a press conference held in Boston March 25, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt said the headquarters, home to 200 employees, would be “surrounded by labs.” Details of the ratio of office to lab space, and which uses will be located in the existing buildings, have yet to be determined, Gensler said.

Gensler has previously worked with GE on interior design at its GE Digital division in San Ramon, California and workspaces in New York City.

GE moved its headquarters from New York City to a 68-acre Fairfield, Connecticut office park in 1974. Only 200 of the 800 current employees there will relocate to Boston when it closes. An additional 600 employees from GE’s digital, current, robotics and life science divisions will fill the remaining jobs in Fort Point.

The waterfront site at a gateway to the Seaport District provides opportunities for public engagement, Gensler said.

“You’ve got the ability to interact with all sorts of educational and cultural institutions. You want to be at the crossroads and being in a city like Boston provides an immediate platform to capitalize on that,” he said.

Gensler’s 110-employee Boston office will lead the project.

GE will occupy temporary space at 33-41 Farnsworth St. in Fort Point beginning in August.