Sumit Singhal Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination.
Emerson Two Boylston Place in Boston, Massachusetts by Elkus Manfredi Architects
February 7th, 2020 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: Elkus Manfredi Architects
PROJECT DESIGN INTENT
Emerson College is the nation’s pre-eminent institution in higher education devoted to communication and the arts in a liberal arts context. Over the past 25 years, Emerson has worked closely with Elkus Manfredi Architects as it steadily purchased and renovated property in the city’s historic downtown Theatre District to create a new urban campus abutting some of the city’s most important and historic places, including the Boston Common, the Boston Public Garden, the Massachusetts State House, and the Freedom Trail.
Elkus Manfredi designed an 18-story residence hall that answers Emerson College’s critical demand for on-campus housing, addresses the location challenges presented by the site, and most importantly, serves the needs and desires of Emerson students, who – as both creatives and millennials – crave spaces that provide opportunity for community, social connection, and inspiration.
The new facility, which welcomed its first students in fall 2017, showcases Elkus Manfredi’s innovative thinking in the effective use of indoor space. Because Emerson’s tight urban campus lacks outdoor communal spaces for its gregarious and socially-engaged students, indoor opportunities for spontaneous student interaction, personal expression, and social gathering are an essential feature of any addition to the College’s building inventory. Traditional college residential designs generally include a small, multi-purpose common space on every floor, but the new residence hall’s relatively small footprint – just 5400 gross square feet – rendered those types of spaces impractical and an unacceptable drain on the building’s overall capacity for occupancy.
Elkus Manfredi solved this challenge by creating larger shared community spaces on five floors in the building that are themed around the social needs and desires of the Emerson students who will occupy it. The new common rooms include:
A ground-floor space that opens onto an al fresco restaurant during pleasant weather to integrate the building with Boylston Place
An airy lobby space with artistic design elements that create on homage to a backstage theater space
A two-story space with a performance stage element and a quiet mezzanine for study
A cooking-and-dining-themed space with a coffee-shop feel designed to allow an entire floor of students to have a communal meal
A spectacular space on the top floors that includes a panoramic view of the city and an outdoor terrace for special occasions, allowing all of the student residents of the building to enjoy the benefits of Emerson’s unique location.
OVERALL PROJECT CHALLENGES
The campus is intensely urban and situated on a densely built-up block of historic buildings with little land available for use in expansion.
Traditional student residential design does not address the unique needs and desires of the Emerson student.
Competing priorities for campus enhancement include maximizing use of space to bring a high percentage of students onto campus in residential rooms; and creating sufficient indoor common spaces to promote community, study, self-expression, and emotional well-being.
The site on Boylston Place was extremely tight, with all construction activities, equipment, and materials needing to moved through a single, 14-foot-wide access point.
The site included two existing buildings requiring different approaches:
1-2 Boylston Place was a deteriorated, early 20th-century commercial building with little historic significance. It needed to be taken down.
3 Boylston Place, known as the Ancient Landmark Building, was constructed in 1888 as a lodge for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a unique organization that was dedicated to helping impoverished people and first of the lodges to allow female members. The red brick masonry, stone, and copper of 3 Boylston Place exhibits an eclectic combination of Queen Anne and Romanesque revival architecture unique in the district. Unlike 1-2 Boylston Place, 3 Boylston Place needed to be preserved.
Created five destination common rooms that promote mixing of students from all parts of the building, rather than aggregating social interaction by floor.
Preserved and incorporated the façade of the Ancient Landmark Building to maintain the historic connection to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Created themes for each common room specifically designed to address what Emerson students want: connection to the rest of the College, space for artistic self-expression, opportunities to build community, and design features that promote inspiration and emotional well-being.
Mixed residential options including suites, singles, doubles, and triples.
Added much-needed capacity of 375 beds to facilitate the renovation of the Little Building in the short term and to help meet the College and City’s stated goal of housing the maximum possible number of students on campus.
The Patio – a ground-floor space with large windows that open in pleasant weather to connect the building to the Boylston Place pedestrian way and give a ground-level sense of activity. Design details include:
A blurring of lines between inside and out, borrowing from the language of Parisian-style cafés
The west wall’s rotating exhibits of student art installations
Accessibility to all students, not just residents, enhancing opportunities for social interaction.
The Flytower Lobby – An airy lobby space with artistic design elements that create on homage to a backstage theater space. Design elements include:
A vertical mirrored frit glass at the south wall that recalls traditional theatrical hemp rigging lines
The acoustically-attenuated north wall, which exhibits an art installation piece digitally created from an audio spectrograph of the College President’s welcome message
A dramatic stair hung from the ceiling that connects three levels of the residence hall and provides a sculptural element within the space.
The Kitchen – A meeting space designed specifically for the students’ wish to have communal meals for any floor in the building. The space features:
A raw, unfinished architecture of exposed brick, polished concrete floors, and reclaimed wood tables that creates an informal ambience where students can relax
Capacity for up to 30 students, making it the ideal location for an all-floor meeting, pizza party, or celebration
Odd Fellows – Located directly behind the existing copper-clad Queen Anne bay windows, a two-story space with a stage element for impromptu and scheduled student performances, and a quieter mezzanine area for study, collaborative work, and respite. Design themes:
Design continues the quirky architecture of the original Odd Fellows Lodge, executed with a contemporary twist
Tall velvet curtains referencing stage curtains frame the windows and a millwork stage element creates a focal point for the main space
Designed to be unique on campus, the space is suitable for small gatherings, readings, or simply watching movies.
The Loft – A study-oriented space with spectacular views, a double-height glass curtain wall with a wood ceiling, industrial-style railings, and an outdoor terrace that can be used for supervised events. Details include:
Located on two floors high above the rest of campus
Designed to resemble a residential warehouse conversion, the Loft offers a stylish space in which to relax
The double-story glass walls to the north and east connect students with the constantly changing seasonality of the Boston Common.
Other overall building design elements include:
Building design achieves LEED-NC Gold while preserving and incorporating the façade of a historic building into the new structure.
All energy-efficient LED lighting throughout maximizes opportunities for natural ventilation, including large six-by-eight-foot windows that bring in natural light and make rooms feel larger than they are.
Design elements at higher elevations of the exterior break up the appearance of the building and add visual interest and complexity to the College’s skyline.
Emerson College was founded in Boston in 1880 as the Boston Conservatory of Elocution, Oratory, and Dramatic Art by Charles Wesley Emerson, a Unitarian minister, author, and expert on oratory who believed effective communication was the key to personal fulfillment. For most of the school’s first half-century, it was known as the Emerson College of Oratory and moved between various locations in Boston, including Pemberton Square, the South End, and what is now Downtown Crossing. During the 1930s, the name was shortened to Emerson College and the school moved to Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood.
By the late 1980s, the College’s expanding student body was outgrowing its Back Bay location. After exploring moves outside Boston, Emerson purchased a building in Boston’s downtown Theatre District, and, shortly afterward, submitted its first ten-year Institutional Master Plan to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (now the Boston Planning & Redevelopment Agency). Outlining a phased move of the College to the edge of a blighted district known as the “Combat Zone,” the plan aligned with the City of Boston’s longstanding desire to revitalize the area. The plan was also a roadmap to help Emerson house a higher percentage of its students on campus, thereby addressing a key priority of the city to reduce housing pressures on surrounding neighborhoods.
Over the next 25 years, Emerson worked closely with Elkus Manfredi Architects as it steadily purchased and renovated property in the area to create a unique urban campus abutting some of the city’s most important and historic places, including the Boston Common, the Boston Public Garden, the Massachusetts State House, and the Freedom Trail. Emerson’s campus now includes the historic Cutler Majestic Theatre restored by Elkus Manfredi, the Little Building, and several other facilities along Tremont and Boylston Streets that contain dormitories, a student center, athletic facilities, classrooms, media production facilities, and rehearsal and performance spaces. In 2005, Emerson asked Elkus Manfredi to restore and revitalize the Paramount Theatre, a historic Art Deco movie palace that was one of Boston’s first theatres to show talking pictures. The Paramount Center now includes a renovated 550-seat theatre, a 125-seat black box theatre, numerous other performance and rehearsal spaces, classrooms, offices, and a student residence hall.
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