The fall semester began this week for ten students from the School of Architecture + Design’s Center for Design Research at Virginia Tech. These students will be taking a design studio, fabrication seminar and professional practice course taught in PAYETTE’s office in Boston.
Kevin Sullivan, FAIA, PAYETTE’s President and a Virginia Tech architecture school alum, welcomed the group and introduced them to PAYETTE’s design philosophy, values and culture. Students began the week with an office tour and introduction to our Building Science and Sustainability, Space Strategies, and Design Visualization teams. They also met with our Young Designer’s Core and Women in Design groups.
Today, the students begin their design studio course, along with an introduction to PAYETTE’s FabLab and the start of their course in Fabrication for Architectural Practice.
Fabrication for Architectural Practice, taught by Parke MacDowell, Fabrication Manager, is modeled on how we use fabrication in our practice, where making is both a vital part of the design process and a powerful way to convey ideas and intent. The course will cover use of digital fabrication tools and materials, as well as creating models and mockups at a variety of scales as part of exploration and presentation of their studio projects.
The design studio course, taught by Kevin Sullivan, FAIA (PAYETTE), Dr. Nathan King and Robert Dunay, FAIA (Center for Design Research, Virginia Tech), will explore Boston and its evolution into one of the most important Life Sciences and Technology hubs in the world with a design studio project titled NEXUS. NEXUS will be an interdisciplinary HIVE for collaboration comprised of several buildings on a downtown Boston site. Students will be asked to consider and test the challenges and design opportunities related to performance, sustainability and resiliency that the unique site conditions impose.
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.