Fostering Shared Agency Through Making
fabrication at PAYETTE
When someone enters our studio, they are immediately greeted by a row of intricately crafted artifacts, abstractions of our work that capture the imagination, inspire curiosity, and demonstrate our attention to detail and rigorous design approach. Architectural Fabrication is integral to our design process at PAYETTE and is how we explore concepts in a real-world setting. We produce physical tools to communicate ideas and invite design agency, both internally and with collaborators.
our workshop culture
Prototypes, models and custom products are designed and fabricated in-house. Through these physical explorations, we learn, synthesize, validate, and create innovative solutions for complex design problems. Having the ability to do so enables swift project iterations and facilitate conveying novel ideas. Our workshop culture is supported by a dedicated fabrication team of architects and designers fueled by a passion for craftmanship.
The 2025 OpenLAB Boston studio work will be exhibited at Virginia Tech Monday, March 2nd through Wednesday, March 4th.
Please join us for the following events on Monday, March 2nd:
11:00am - Lecture with Parke MacDowell
1:00pm Lobby talk with Kevin Sullivan
This year’s studio identifies seven sites along the frayed edges of Boston’s Greenway. The Greenway is a one-mile-long linear park running through the heart of the city, reconnecting downtown Boston with its waterfront. Many of the parcels along its edges remain undeveloped and present mute, blank facades to the public realm. Addressing and repairing these edges through acts of infilling, layering, grafting, framing, and placemaking is the core focus of the studio—SUTURE.
architects as makers
Fabrication at PAYETTE is a dynamic initiative. We position our in-house team to leverage our agility and energy for maximum impact in the context of evolving aspirations and opportunities. We make things to support of our broader priorities: How do we make both our architecture and our design process more engaging, thoughtful and beautiful? Fabrication is the key.
enabling the conversation
Presenting design options and reviewing them with clients and builders is optimal when ideas materialize. Scale models and mock-ups are easily understood; having a physical object to review is an accessible means of communication and allows all key clients voices to be empowered to contribute. Similarly, a built prototype will support a novel construction detail or material approach to a builder to facilitate productive discussions.
DIGITAL FABRICATION AND TRADITIONAL MACHINES
PAYETTE’s in-house capabilities are powered by state-of-the-art digital fabrication equipment and traditional tools from two locations. Our office is home to a fully equipped model shop with wood working equipment, 3D printers and laser cutters. We teach and welcome all of our staff to use these resources. The second fabrication space hosts our welding equipment, a Bridgeport milling and a CNC router. Our trained fabrication team operates these machines to make models, prototypes and finish custom pieces for PAYETTE’s projects.
what we make
At PAYETTE, we build models for a variety of purposes: campus and site planning to understand context, full-scale mock-ups to examine how an element or a space will feel in its final form, detail models to engineer how specific components will come together, custom pieces that preform a function in our final buildings, and exhibition pieces that represent a holistic vision of project with our highest level of craft. A curated selection of work examples is listed in the last section of this page.
Serving our communities
As architects and planners, we have agency to shape the built environment and a responsibility to support and guide positive growth with an awareness of the diverse constituencies served by our shared spaces. Our public art projects leverage our in-house fabrication capabilities and our strong community relationships. We build the creative process with stakeholders as our foundation and strive to create inspirational pieces for all together.
retooling education
PAYETTE regularly uses our fabrication resources as an entry-point to introduce local youth to careers in design and construction. We have hosted workshops and internships that use small fabrication projects to teach design skills and foster an affirming connection between the mind and the hand that is especially valuable in our hyper-digital world. This outreach extends into collegiate architectural education through during the fall semester, when host a full studio in our Boston office, where students work side-by-side with our designers and architects.
Selected Work
The following is a curated list of projects that support our workshop culture and engagement within our communities.
Full Scale Work
Community engagement
