Chelsea, Massachusetts, USA
Crowned by its iconic solar array perched high above historic Powder Horn Hill, the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea emerges from the hillside, a new landmark exuding compassion, warmth and dignity.
Massachusetts Veterans Home by Payette Associates, won an American Architecture Award 2025 from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.
Located on the highest point in the Boston basin, the new Veterans Home is a long-term care facility for veterans designed to harness 360-degree panoramic views of downtown Boston and the Harbor. Conceived as a hospital in a garden, the transformative Net Zero Hospital provides 154 private rooms organized around shared community spaces embracing generous landscaped courtyards and gardens that are integrated with the surrounding neighborhood. The project is part of a 10-year, multi-phase effort including the new hospital, demolition of the existing hospital, the rebuilding of Malone Park and reconfiguration of the entire site.
Designed as a Community Living Center, the overarching goal is to provide a home where veterans can have the highest possible quality of life and receive the best quality care. This environment is a place that supports caregiving that is administered with integrity, commitment and respect. Overall, the environment provides veterans with independence, dignity, engagement and family involvement.
From afar, the building was imagined as a faceted rock outcropping—exposed geological strata piercing the tree line on Powder Horn Hill. A monumental solar array unifies the composition and collects the faceted H-shaped form below as it follows the undulating profile of the natural topography. Two courtyards are contained within the “H,” the Memorial Garden and the Dementia Courtyard, with the main lobby on level 1 looking into both spaces. The Memorial Garden faces the historic Civil War era campus and the Dementia Courtyard overlooks Malone Park.
The massing is defined by two brick clad residential Houses (14 beds/floor) that form the legs of the “H” and are connected to a Neighborhood Center that bridges between the two Houses. The Neighborhood Center is fully transparent and functions as a fully enclosed, naturally ventilated porch, an activity zone opening onto the landscape with infinite vistas on each side. Each 14-bed house consists of two 7-bed pods on each end with a living room, dining room and kitchen forming the hearth in the center of the house.
The building organization pairs resident homes around neighborhood centers with the first floor housing the community center, administration and a dementia care unit. The ground level contains physical and occupational therapy, support, plumbing and electrical spaces. A penthouse screen wall hides air handling units and additional mechanical equipment with a photovoltaic solar panel array capping the building. A 63% energy reduction from the national baseline is enabled by the use of a ground source heating and cooling system consisting of 145 vertical wells below Malone Park coupled with a high-performance envelope.
The kitchen forms the heart of the home with the dining and living room anchoring the center social. Two wings extend from the social core with groupings of 7 private resident rooms and smaller sitting areas giving residents options for smaller social gathering and scales down the home. A shift in the plan offsets the central corridor to break down its scale and length hinging off the social core. The home is designed around a narrow floorplate to maximize daylight penetration and the social areas of the home provide views in all cardinal directions to engage the residents with circadian rhythms and allow for the most variation in space and light quality as possible.
Architects: Payette Associates, Inc.
Design Team: Scott Parker, Kevin Sullivan, James Baer, Wesley Schwartz, Scott Parker, Kevin Sullivan, James Baer, Wesley Schwartz, Montserrat Minguell, Yin Xia, and Mary Gallagher
General Contractor: Penrose
Client: Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea
Photographers: Robert Benson Photographer
