OpenLAB Studio Student Work

Each semester, the OpenLAB Studio explores a different scale and urban context. Students are challenged to learn how to address a complex design problem, working at multiple scales and exploring multiple processes: urban design, building design, landscape architecture, building science and prototype design through fabrication. Model making and fabrication are stressed throughout the semester to clarify and explore design intent. A controlled palette of materials is initially prescribed at the beginning of the semester for all studio and fabrication explorations; however, after the midterm review for the building design component, students are given the freedom to employ techniques that they feel are the best way to describe their design intent for each project.

isthmus studio 2024
Director of OpenLAB Boston and Faculty: Kevin Sullivan
Instructors: Meredith Hutto, Calvin Boyd, Mark Bandzak, Bob Schaeffner, Oscar Zamora

In the Fall of 2024, 10 fourth-year architecture students from Virginia Tech and Hampton University participated in the ISTHMUS OpenLAB Studio at PAYETTE. The semester-long program immersed students in courses such as Integrated Design Studio, Professional Practice and Digital Fabrication, while they became fully integrated into PAYETTE’s culture. The ISTHMUS Studio focused on a site in Nubian Square, Roxbury, a historically layered urban space in the process of revitalization. Students were tasked with exploring the concept of layered space and the square’s rugged urban character, considering contrasting elements such as public vs. private, soft vs. hard and sacred vs. profane. Their challenge was to propose architectural interventions that blend adaptive reuse with new construction, contributing to the ongoing reinvigoration of this vital Boston neighborhood.

urban inlay studio 2023
Director of OpenLAB Boston and Faculty: Kevin Sullivan
Instructors: Dane Clark; Kofi Akakpo; Sarah Radding; Stephanie Balsam; Shaun Morris; Wesley Schwartz; Xuancheng Zhu

The 2023 URBAN INLAY Studio, which included 14 fourth-year architecture students from Virginia Tech and Hampton University, focused on seven building sites across Boston’s North End. The sites were quirky residual gaps in the well-established urban fabric of the North End that were formed over time. Due to the odd shape of the parcels, creative architectural invention was necessary to respond to the challenging dimensions and specificity of each site. Over the course of the semester, the students studied interventions that both respected and responded to context while subverting assumptions of space and density.

oasis studio 2022
Director of OpenLAB Boston and Faculty: Kevin Sullivan
Instructors: Susan Blomquist; Ching Hua Ho; Jessica Jorge; Mark Oldham; Mark Scott; Lucia Valentin

In 2022, 13 fourth-year architecture students from Virginia Tech focused on a neighborhood health and community center in an in-fill site in the center of Boston’s Chinatown. The ground floor program included an urgent care clinic and diagnostics screening center, with the remainder of the building determined by the individual teams following a period of contextual analysis. The students teamed together in pairs to propel the themes of sustainability, embedded nature and community-centered design into a deeply realized and complex project.

nexus studio 2021
Director of OpenLAB Boston and Faculty: Kevin Sullivan
Instructors: Leon Drachman; Craig Mutter; Mark Scott

In 2021, PAYETTE hosted 10 Virginia Tech Architecture + Design students from the Center for Design Research OpenLAB Studio. The course explored Boston and its evolution into one of the most important life science and technology hubs in the world. The NEXUS Studio explored an interdisciplinary hive for collaboration comprised of several buildings on a downtown Boston site. Students were asked to consider and test the challenges and design opportunities related to performance, sustainability and resiliency that the unique site conditions imposed.

“Since 2021, I have been involved with the OpenLAB program in multiple roles – as a lecturer, a studio critic, team advisor and observer. Because the students are embedded directly in the studio with their own desks side-by-side with PAYETTE staff, we all experience the energy and curiosity they bring to the office whether or not we are directly involved with the program and they, in turn, start to understand the rhythm and feel of the office culture and ongoing work.

The most intensive and rewarding role was as a team advisor – providing direct, ongoing feedback to a group of three students as they navigated a challenging project, new skills and team dynamics throughout the semester. The program is designed to push the students to think about design, documentation and craft in entirely new ways and at times the students struggled with novel concepts. But what struck me most about the unique configuration of this studio is that the students were able to draw from an incredibly rich pool of talented designers and architects outside of their classmates to find answers and inspiration. Although I was the day-to-day advisor for the team, they frequently connected with the PAYETTE people around them to test ideas, ask questions and receive support. The quality and precision of the team’s thought and execution made leaps in quality over the course of a few short months. More than anything, I was inspired by their dedication to making the most of this opportunity; they poured their hearts into the work and were rewarded with truly incredible results.”