We are pleased to announce that three of our projects have been recognized with five BSA Design Awards, announced at last night’s Virtual Awards Gala. The Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center at Lafayette College and the New Science Center at Amherst college were recognized with Awards in the Honor Awards for Design Excellence category and also received Citations for Sustainable Design. PedX, the new pedestrian crossing was recognized with a Citation for Design Excellence.
Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center | Lafayette College
Award, Honor Awards for Design Excellence
Citation, Sustainable Design
Conceived as an “inside–out” building, the Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center revolves around the building’s heart, a vibrant four-story gathering space. Perched on a steep hill and nested tightly between existing buildings, this LEED Platinum building provides visual proximity and intimate connection between the science departments within, and uses cascading exterior landscape spaces to connect back to the campus community. With its entry on the third of five floors, much of the building’s mass is largely concealed from view. It serves as an inviting beacon at the core of this cherished historic setting. The Rockwell Science Center was intentionally designed to spark and strengthen interdisciplinary connections, a distinctive feature of Lafayette College’s educational mission.
New Science Center | Amherst College
Award, Honor Awards for Design Excellence
Citation, Sustainable Design
Charged with promoting interaction among students in the sciences, across departments and within the college, the New Science Center creates an open and accessible learning environment for the entire Amherst College campus community.
From overall organization to detailing, the design promotes transparency and interaction. A central daylight-filled Commons serves as the building’s social heart, openly welcoming the entire academic community through a campus scaled gesture — an ultra-transparent window into science. Finely crafted skylights, with photovoltaic panels that generate electricity, run the length of the Commons, forming the building’s distinctive roof and unifying feature. Clearly articulated, minimally expressed natural materials permeate this project, nesting a contemporary building into the more traditional legacy of Amherst’s rural campus. From handmade gray bricks recalling local stone walls to the custom weathering steel screens complementing the tones of nearby red brick structures, the project embraces craft and detailing as the natural tie to its context.
PedX | Northeastern University
Citation, Honor Awards for Design Excellence
PedX, an ambitious pedestrian bridge project, is a symbol of Northeastern’s ongoing mission to strengthen communities by bringing them together. Using state-of-the-art engineering methods and technology, a 500-foot free-form pedestrian bridge connects Northeastern’s main campus with its new academic building on Columbus Avenue. This newly defined thoroughfare provides access between the Roxbury and Fenway neighborhoods. The integration of the pedestrian crossing and landscape with the cutting-edge research buildings form one of Boston’s most exciting and dynamic new public spaces.
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.