MASS MoCA Building 6

Phase 3 is the realization of a 25-year master plan and completes the site circulation plan, encouraging multiple ways to explore the MASS MoCA campus. Two buildings with a combined 130,000 square feet of undeveloped space create areas for video, film and multi-media exhibits as well as events, workshops and storage. The design continues MASS MoCA’s “museum within the museum” concept by collaborating with artists, foundations and collectors. Each collection is curated by its author to have its own distinct character. MASS MoCA curates the remaining space, with places for changing installation pieces by emerging artists.

Phase 3 also continues to improve connections between MASS MoCA and the town of North Adams. Development of the West Main Street access route enhances the museum’s access to the downtown business district, and campus bike paths link the museum to a regional pathway initiative.

With the completion of Phase III, MASS MoCA has become one of the largest contemporary art museums in the country.

Richard A. & Susan F. Smith Campus Center

A much-needed modernization and radical reorganization of uses brought new spaces into the public sphere with multi-story linkages throughout the site. It is part of Harvard’s ongoing ‘Common Spaces’ initiatives, intended to ensure that its physical spaces foster intellectual, cultural, and social experiences on campus.

Our team worked as Executive Architect with Harvard’s client team and with Hopkins Architects, the project’s Design Architect on extensive planning and programming for this once-controversial campus icon. The now-historic architecture of Josep Lluis Sert has been carefully reinterpreted with increased transparency across the first and second floors and improved connectivity between the original arcade and two busy side streets. A series of additions and removals at the exposed concrete walls and piers in the arcade introduce light into the heart of the building, while remaining respectful to the logic of Sert’s original design.

Newly accessible landscaped plazas at the north and south ends of the site, a dramatic roof garden, and an interior birch grove reinforce the building’s openness to Harvard Square and mediate between the Arcade and the new ‘Harvard Commons’ space – the multi-level central room of the Campus Center. Flexible interior spaces for performances and other events attract and mix the university’s varied constituencies– faculty, undergraduates, staff, graduate students, and visitors from the public-at-large.

The building’s tenth floor is converted to a suite of engaging formal and informal meeting spaces, as well as a café. The lower floors have six new food venues within, as well as a new restaurant facing a major side street. Building envelope work included full concrete restoration and introduction of safety and solar improvements to the building’s fenestration.

Lunder Arts Center

As part of the newly formed Porter Square Arts District, the Lunder Arts Center beautifully blends the community’s long history of artistic expression with Lesley’s contemporary approach to education. From state-of-the-art-studios and classrooms to dedicated collaborative areas, this is a dynamic space that’s designed to foster conversation, creativity and community engagement.

Incorporating the historic North Prospect Congregational Church was a crucial part of our design process. Relocating the church to its original location was an exciting opportunity to bridge 19th-century ecclesial traditions with 21st-century architecture. The renovated church is accompanied by an adjacent new structure that compliments its iconic architecture and draws inspiration from the industrial heritage of the city. The result is a terra cotta-clad studio wing informed by the massing, scale and detail of the church, which was converted to house the art library, offices and design studios.

From the street, an active urban plaza leads to a dramatic glass-enclosed entry connecting the two buildings, juxtaposing the past and the present and representing the interdisciplinary dialogue between the traditional studio arts and new media. This space invites the Lesley community and Cambridge residents to gather, display art, host events and more.

The center was also designed with a focus on sustainability achieving LEED Gold certification. The complex maintains a healthy indoor environment for student artists with the use of energy efficient ventilation systems and is modeled to use 40% less energy than required by code.

Living Village

The project includes the construction of graduate housing and modification of the entry to the adjacent Delano and Aldrich–designed quadrangle, and serves multiple purposes: as an active training facility for builders of communities, an affordable student residence, a demonstration site for ecological stewardship and leadership, and an outward expression of contemporary regenerative architecture.

The Living Village is the result of a decade-long, comprehensive, integrated planning and design process. Bruner/Cott Architects, lead Architect responsible for the project, worked in collaboration with Höweler + Yoon Architecture, Design Architect, and a consortium of industry-leading engineers and sustainability consultants: establishing guidelines for energy and water performance, prototyping super-insulated mass timber wall assemblies, and managing regulatory review with various water and utility authorities. Designed for net-positive energy and water, as well as zero waste, the project incorporates extensive systems for the collection, on-site treatment, and reuse of rainwater and wastewater.

The Living Village engages in dialogue with the strongly formal, historic architecture. The U-shaped two-story building captures solar energy and water with familiar but fresh massing, roof proportions, and form. The Living Village benefits from regenerative design strategies implemented for the climate and biome conditions of the northeast.

The Living Village is largest living-building residential complex on a university campus and is a key building project supporting Yale’s Sustainability Vision, Climate Action Plan, and Planetary Solutions Project.

Gund Hall

Designed by John Andrews, Gund Hall considered a heroic marvel of concrete-modernism. This carbon-conscious renovation is a national example of sustainable performance for significant modern buildings of this type and scale.

Across multiple phases, the project replaces the complex curtainwall and special window assemblies to meet advanced energy codes and conserve original design elements. BIM-based models for carbon emissions, energy consumption, and lighting inform the design for heightened storm resistance.

Aliki Perroti & Seth Frank Lyceum

The Aliki Perroti & Seth Frank Lyceum brings together the Center for Humanistic Inquiry (CHI), the College’s History department, and other faculty members selected to drive discourse and critical thinking at Amherst College. Inspired by the Lyceum of Ancient Athens, spaces are arranged to encourage interaction, collaboration and conversation for faculty, students and the greater Amherst College community.

The project incorporates a historic house on the site with new construction for fellows, faculty, students and the community to explore the human condition. The house interior is modified for the new program of offices, classrooms and support spaces. A new two-story addition is placed next to the existing house along Pleasant Street, separated by a transparent exterior wall. These two elements contain the larger, more public spaces, an event space and a flexible classroom. A new three-story office wing wraps behind the existing house and creates a linear band of offices looking west. The design leverages the adjacencies of offices, classrooms, a ground floor event space, and an outdoor terrace all connected by an open commons. This central space establishes places for the community to share thoughts, ideas, and work.

The Lyceum is “smartly sustainable” building, designed to support Amherst College’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030 and showcase low carbon construction. For both the interior and exterior, the materials palette prioritizes those with lower amounts of embodied carbon and products that can store carbon, such as wood and other plant-based materials. The envelope is highly insulative and airtight. Coupled with efficient mechanical systems, this project demonstrates how buildings can dramatically reduce their impact from construction, and through their operational life. Indoor air quality, operable windows, a daylighting strategy, and views to the surrounding environment are additional considerations to improve occupant wellbeing.

Fries Arts Building

At Wesleyan University, we transformed a vacant factory building into a new integrative arts lab. Situated at the edge of campus, the site was formerly home to the Mohawk Manufacturing Company, among others. The oldest structure on site was constructed in 1850, with an addition built in 1922.

The Fries Arts Building is a nexus for the arts at Wesleyan – a social place that encourages community, collaboration, and conversation. Spaces are arranged to support students and encourage disciplinary work. The program includes spaces for visual arts, performing arts, maker spaces along with a flexible arts commons. Contemporary additions to the existing T-shape complex expand the capabilities of the new facility, blending old and new.

The project reinforces Wesleyan’s commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, and meets aspirational sustainability goals that conserve resources, prioritize occupancy health and wellness, and limit embodied carbon through building reuse.

R.W. Kern Center

Certified as a Living Building by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), the 17,000-square-foot center joins just 16 other Living Buildings certified to date. At the time of completion, the R.W. Kern Center was the largest Living Certified higher-education project in the world.

The building is prominently sited on Hampshire’s campus and serves as a welcome center for staff, students, and their families. The central floor-to-ceiling glass pavilion maintains a connection to the outdoors and serves as a hub of campus activity with a common area, community living room, and café on the ground floor and gallery above. Two stone-clad wings house admissions and financial aid offices and classrooms with views of the amphitheater, rainwater harvesting reservoirs, solar farm, and wildflower meadow.

With a solar canopy to generate electricity, the rainwater harvesting system for net-zero water, and exposed walls in the mechanical rooms, the building itself serves as a learning and teaching laboratory. Daily tours and signage give students and visitors the opportunity to participate in collecting and analyzing data regarding green building practices. New classes are built around the teaching opportunities the living building makes available, inspiring the kind of inquiry and stewardship embodied in Hampshire’s philosophy of contributing to knowledge, justice, and positive change in the world.

Selected from over 40 entries in a design competition, our plan rerouted a corporate campus drive, replaced it with the wildflower meadow, and created a human-centered landscape with the Kern Center as the new heart of the campus. Using local stone and wood, the building emphasizes the importance of the relationship between indoors, and the plaza and landscaping around the building encourages people to enjoy being outside and around the building, not just inside it. All building materials are Red List compliant, avoiding products made with toxic chemicals, to make the center the healthiest possible working and learning environment for students and staff.

“The R.W. Kern Center provides a model for addressing global challenges and a symbol of the positive change possible in how we approach built environments.” -Jonathan Lash, President, Hampshire College

Charles River Speedway

In 1899, the Metropolitan Park Commission constructed the Speedway to serve as a headquarters to support the new parkway along the Charles River. What was once a bustling gathering place in the community became an abandoned structure suffering from decay and fire damage in 2005.

Working alongside the Architectural Heritage Foundation, Bruner/Cott was able to breathe new life into this Boston Historic Landmark. Now, it is home to a variety of tenants and serves as a gateway to the Allston-Brighton neighborhood.

Throughout the design process, it was important for us to stay true to the building’s original architects. The arched gable entrances, porches, double hung windows and elaborate wood trim were all thoughtfully incorporated as they are characteristic to William D Austin’s architectural work for the Metropolitan Park Commission. An irregular roofline connects six shingle-style buildings, creating a single-story courtyard for residents and visitors to enjoy.

 

School of Law

The buildings are seamlessly attached at the base by a new two-story all-glass atrium that serves as a social hub for the complex. Together the buildings provide state-of-the-art classrooms, practice court rooms, and conference rooms; a dining hall; multiple study and lounge areas; two libraries; and 164 offices for faculty and staff. The renovated tower restores the glory of Sert’s original design while updating the interiors to provide light-filled spaces and sweeping views, boost energy efficiency, and improve access to classrooms and training facilities.

Constructing the new Redstone Building was part of our strategy to keep the law school on the existing site rather than build a new complex elsewhere. While the building absorbed much of a former outdoor plaza, the new space includes floor-to-ceiling windows in a café overlooking the Charles River and the expansive glass atrium entrance to bring the outside in. Students benefit from an expanded library, inviting study and lounge areas, and spacious classrooms and training rooms that are easily accessible.

The materials, colors, and details of the Redstone Building complement Sert’s tower, whose exterior was meticulously repaired and restored. Like many buildings of the era, the cast-in-place and exposed aggregate precast panels of the Tower weathered poorly. Concrete spalled and steel frame windows and panels failed. We fully restored the building’s façade, repairing the concrete and replacing window and metal panels with modern, energy-efficient assemblies of similar design. Painted ventilator panels in Sert’s original bold colors have brought back the brilliance of his 1960 design for all to appreciate.

In addition to the external issues, the tower never worked well for its occupants. Its 18 stories were served by six small elevators which conveyed students to 100-seat classrooms on the upper floors. At peak times, it took as long as 20 minutes to go from one class to another. The gut renovation of the building’s interior included moving a majority of the larger classrooms to the adjacent Redstone Building, creating faculty and administration office space on the upper floors, and rehabilitating the Pappas Library with much-needed cosmetic and structural upgrades.

The project achieved LEED Gold in 2016. Renovation of the historic Tower earned the project points for building re-use, and replacement of the inefficient 1960’s-era mechanical systems earned the project critical energy points.

Redstone Building Program:

  • Total classrooms: 19
  • Sloped classrooms: 8
  • Training rooms: 2
  • Flat floor classrooms: 9
  • Practice court room: 1
  • Dining: 3,300 sf
  • Lounges: 4
  • Offices: 7
  • Tower Reno Program:
  • Total classrooms: 17
  • Sloped classrooms: 9
  • Training rooms: 2
  • Flat floor classrooms: 8
  • Practice court room: 4
  • Lounges: 8
  • Student activity rooms: 6
  • Offices: 157