2017 Build Architecture Awards - Urban Infill Design Specialists of the Year
Slender stainless steel tubes were inserted to replace the ground floor concrete columns, and a glass storefront was set back from the streets for better site circulation. A covered courtyard was created on Folsom Street to receive the adjacent 680 Folsom podium stair and to serve as the entrance to the second floor.
An existing open area on Third Street was developed as a landscaped public courtyard and will serve as the entrance to a future ground floor restaurant. A new steel framed roof structure was constructed to replace the timber-framed roof, and new concrete elements were added internally for seismic resistance.
Boston Properties is a well-known real estate investment trust with a distinguished corporate portfolio, and not known for unconventional design. However, for this site, they requested a striking, attention-grabbing structure that would stand out against the well-tailored architectural background of the tower behind it. To achieve this effect, the second floor is wrapped in a metal screen, a kind of architectural lamé, cut from aluminum sheets using CNC machines. The gap between the original façade and the new screen contains two rows of LED lights – at night the second floor appears to hover above its delicate supports. The lights change color bi-weekly according to a series of programmed scenes, some of which reflect a holiday or civic event. The building is topped by a glass cornice, conceived to protect the gap between the metal screen and the building wall, but from some viewpoints serendipitously reflects the screen pattern below increasing its vertical dimension.