PAYETTE Honored with Harleston Parker Medal & Four BSA Awards

We are thrilled to announce that Land’s Sake Farm has received the prestigious Harleston Parker Medal. 

This highest honor awarded by the Boston Society of Architects/AIA recognizes “the most beautiful piece of architecture, building, monument or structure within the City or Metropolitan Parks District limits.” It was established in 1921 in memory of Boston architect J. Harleston Parker with the first medal given in 1923. The jury found that Land’s Sake Farm is a project where architecture, craft, and community come together in a way that feels both intentional and lively. The building is legible, allowing visitors to understand its structure and purpose while engaging with the farm’s educational and communal programs. Overall, the entirely community-funded farm transcends its program by embracing a broad constituency, providing access, education, and substance, ultimately demonstrating how architecture can support both people and place in meaningful ways.

The Ragon Institute, PSU ECoRE, Bates College Bonney Science Center, and Williams College Wachenheim Science Center are also received the BSA Built Design Excellence awards.

land’s sake farm
Harleston Parker Medal

Land’s Sake Farm is a non-profit community farm that donates 30% of its produce for hunger relief to communities in need and provides CSA and retail produce for its neighboring communities. The Farm also serves as an educational venue for over 5,000 children annually. PAYETTE assisted the Land’s Sake organization in developing a long-term master plan for their 40-acre farm along with the design of a new Animal Barn and Farmstand. The plan set out to increase efficiency of the farm operations, improve the site’s infrastructure, create a sustainable model and enhance the farm experience for its year-round visitors.

The Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard
Honor Award in Institutional & Cultural Facilities

The Ragon Institute is a unique union of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard at the forefront of infectious disease research, such as HIV-AIDS and COVID-19. Its new 323,000 GSF home is located on a free-standing triangular site along Main Street at the edge of Kendall Square and the MIT Campus. Cantilevered dramatically on 3 corners, the design approach embraced the unusual triangular site as a singular object by floating the mass above a continuous band of landscape on all sides, and seamlessly navigating the gateway site and its varying alignments with the gentle sweep of its mass: its green roof fluidly sloping downward three stories around the block. The elliptical Courtyard Sweep carved into the mass further scales the profile and provides a dynamic silhouette along Main Street; it is an extension of the organically shaped atrium that defines the heart of the institute.

PSU ECoRE
Merit Award in Educational Facilities

The ECoRE Building is a 280,000 SF engineering research and teaching engine at the heart of a new engineering precinct, across the Atherton Street divide, and located at the west terminus of the main campus axis. The building accommodates a comprehensive program, including high tech laboratories and research core facilities, next-generation teaching spaces, as well as spaces for faculty, departmental headhouses and administrative offices.

Anchoring ECoRE is the Vertical Commons, a dynamic study commons, showcasing the social energy of the entire precinct and establishing a vibrant new identity for the College of Engineering. As a focal point for interdisciplninary thinking and collaboration, the ECoRE Building re-aligns research info thematic groupings and focuses on shared use and space optimization at a scale that will change the culture of the College of Engineering for decades to come.

Bates college bonney science center
Honor Award in Educational Facilities

The new Bonney Science Center at Bates College is an exploration of contemporary expression in deep dialogue with the context of a traditional New England college campus. The new building will foster the evolution of science education at the College, embracing the advanced technologies and interdisciplinary collaboration that characterize bioscience research and teaching. As the first academic building to be built outside the campus core and across a major street, it is critical to establish its identity as part of Bates College’s campus.

Williams college wachenheim science center
Commendation in Educational Facilities

Williams College is the quintessential New England liberal arts learning environment located in the heart of the Berkshire mountains. With tremendous growth in the sciences, Williams sought new research and teaching space to address demand and proposed approximately 200,000 SF of new program. The Wacheneim Science Center, comprised of Mathematics & Statistics, Psychology and Geosciences expresses each department with its three shifting massing blocks sized to fit comfortably amongst the existing buildings on the quad and create wonderful outdoor spaces along its edges. The shifts animate the profile of the building along the skyline so it feels like a continuation of the way the campus fabric buildings rise and fall along the rolling landscape, while on the interior, each of the departments has its own distinct living room facing the campus.

Congratulations to our clients, collaborators and project teams on these achievements!

Photography (c) Robert Benson Photography; (c) Warren Jagger Photography