Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Boston- based architectural firm Leers Weinzapfel Associates collaborates with landscape architects Ground Landscape to design the Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Sciences of the Wentworth Institute of Technology.
A showcase for the Institute, the center is a home for the next evolution of the collegiate study in multiple engineering disciplines, promoting partnerships with the private sector and public community engagement.
This project has been awarded a 2021 American Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The facility contains space for interdisciplinary project-based programs including High-End Manufacturing, Maker-Spaces, and Public Assembly areas.
It connects campus and city and fosters exchange, collaboration, and experimentation among the departments.
As the Wentworth Institute of Technology’s program transitions from engineering technology to engineering and innovation, the new four-story, 75,000-square-foot Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Sciences comprise a dynamic environment for multidisciplinary collaboration among students of biology, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, and biological engineering.
The Center is located on a midblock site at the heart of the Institute’s urban campus and plays a pivotal role in the campus plan.
The building acts as a filter between two sides of the extended campus—the quad and the city—and strengthens the pedestrian pike that links them.
In contrast to the closed-off feel of the campus, the ground floor of the building is a transparent showcase that invites the community and contains Accelerate, an interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial project-based program with STEM education for Boston’s inner-city community’s high school students.
A high-end additive manufacturing lab and a lobby that doubles as a multi-purpose gathering and presentation space that the campus looks into completes the ground floor where stepped seating invites students and visitors to experience first-hand displays of Wentworth’s engineering capabilities.
A light, perforated metal veil draped over the volumes gives the Center a distinctive identity in the surrounding context of masonry buildings.
Intended to be a visible demonstration of sustainable design, the Center incorporates enhanced metering for the Institute’s use and student demonstration.
The project exceeds the City of Boston’s requirements of sustainability with a highly efficient thermal envelope, including sun shading on the east, south, and west facades, and mechanical equipment designed for maximum efficiency including low-flow fume hoods.
Resilience measures included raising the ground floor two feet above the current grade and minimizing systems equipment in the basement.
Project: Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Sciences
Architects: Leers Weinzapfel Associates
Design Team: Josiah Stevenson, Tom Chung, Jeffrey Fishbein, and Ben Wilcox
Client: Wentworth Institute of Technology
Contractor: Gilbane Building Company
Landscape Architect: Ground Landscape
Photographers: Albert Vecerka, Langer Hsu – Leers Weinzapfel Associates
