This project brief called for 180,000 square feet of performance spaces on a site of roughly the same size on Boston’s waterfront. Rather than creating a sprawling complex, this project explores the programmatic, environmental, and urbanistic benefits that could be gained from a radical re-organization of programmtic requirements. By orchestrating a series of sectional overlaps, the building allows visitors, performers, students, administrators, and members of the public to join in a communal experience of the performing arts.
By condensing programmatic elements into a building footprint less than half the size of the site, the project allowed for an inversion of the typical paradigm: a park on the site of a building, rather than a building on the site of a park. The site is the only remaining space in the North End where the city fabric connects directly to the water. As a result, the project seeks to create new types of dynamic, outdoor spaces for the local community by leveraging sectional compression to reduce the building footprint to less than a third of the site area.
