We are pleased to announce two of our projects received BSA Design awards. The Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering at Boston University and our Beyond Walls project were recognized in the Honor Awards for Design Excellence category.
The projects selected by the juror were determined by design excellence that was informed by aesthetic, functionality, contextuality, sustainability, social and other characteristics. The BSA will announce the tier of the award recipients at the annual Gala in January 2020.
Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering | Boston University
The Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering is a nine-story, high-intensity academic research building that supports a wide range of research modes to serve present and future scientific communities. Occupying a prominent location on a tight urban site, the building also creates a transparent front door into the university’s science and engineering precinct.
The Kilachand Center is a deceptively simple building volume, articulated simultaneously as both intangibly crystalline and impassively opaque. The building’s skin employs large, glass fiber-reinforced concrete fins and panels to dramatic visual effect. From a distance, it appears entirely solid. Approached obliquely, the gaps between the fins progressively increase, momentarily rendering the skin almost entirely reflective, before the phenomenon reverses itself and the building’s solidity reasserts itself.
Beyond Walls | Lynn, MA
The City of Lynn, Massachusetts has faced challenging economic, demographic and perceptual circumstances for decades. The Beyond Walls project sought to improve walkability in the downtown area, increase safety, and inspire greater community engagement. Beyond Walls Lynn Lights project brightens the City of Lynn with installations including murals, vintage signs and dynamic, colorful and programmable LED lighting installations. These once-avoided areas have become vibrant landmarks in downtown Lynn, where people feel safe and welcome.
Cape Cod Community College’s Frank and Maureen Wilkens Science and Engineering Center is a net-positive energy building designed to transform the heart of campus.
The project approaches sustainability through a holistic and global approach, implementing a range of moves including passive solar shading overhangs, air-source heat pumps, high performance materials with low embodied carbon and the expansion of the range of thermal comfort and lighting power density. Combined with on-site photovoltaics, the project achieves net-positive energy use.
The project’s thermally modified wood rainscreen façade is a study of the modern expression of vernacular Cape Cod architecture while reducing embodied carbon. Early lifecycle assessments identified the immense carbon savings of wood over fiber cement. The design team did not stop there, furthering reductions by peeling back unnecessary finishes like carpet and ceilings. Together, these decisions enabled a 19% reduction in embodied carbon.
#earthweek #designalways #buildingscience #performalism #netpositive #capecodmodernism #capecod #newengland
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