In the Loop:
Linking Boston’s Entrepreneurs + Creatives

Class: “Fourth Semester Architecture Core: RELATE,” Spring 2016
Instructor: Belinda Tato
Collaborators: Gary Lin, James Zhang

BOSTON, MA

Published in GSD Platform 9: Still Life

The City of Boston faces two challenges: a lack of retention of recent college graduates, and a shortage of innovative housing options to serve its largely young, educated residents. Though the city is known as a center of innovation and entrepreneurialism, spaces that encourage collaboration while also serving the neighborhoods in which they’re located are very limited. Startups operate out of expensive office space, while co-working spaces offer limited amounts of privacy and much distraction.

Our project examines the relationship between living and working, and proposes a typology that formally and programmatically links the two in a spatial duality. The site is located in at the convergence of Conley Terminal and the fabric of South Boston, a neighborhood dominated by triple deckers. In addition to re-purposing existing infrastructure elements on the site, we put forth a new type of urban block - one in which retail, office, and residential programs benefit to from the syngeries of each.

Research

When thinking about spatial needs for recent graduates and entrepreneurs, we first considered spatial efficiency. As one of the most expensive housing markets in the United States (and world), Boston lacks live-work space. We first thought about ways in which to create more multi-purpose, interconnected, efficient ways of living. In doing so, we diagrammed the connections between various public and private spaces used for live, work, and leisure.

We also thought about Boston as a city with an entrepreneurial spirit. The city is home to a large number of colleges and universities, and we wanted know if students are likely to remain in Boston or flock to another city following their time in the city. We created a video that probed this idea of “brain drain.”

Concept

Our project creates a program between the City of Boston (represented by the Boston Redevelopment Authority), private real estate developers, and graduating students looking to start small businesses. When built out, the site would function as a development of residential and office/creative space for emerging companies.

An application committee consisting of representatives from the City and developers would select entrepreneurs and startup companies in which to invest. Graduating students would apply to receive rent reduction and affordable office space in which to grow their businesses. After companies grew large enough to need more space, they would leave the site, allowing other emerging companies to move in. The site works as a sort of live-work launchpad for recent graduates in Boston.

Design

We mapped the location of Boston’s existing startups, and discovered that they are mostly clustered in Downtown, Back Bay, and the Seaport (and across the Charles River in Cambridge/Somerville). Our proposal creates space for startups in a different part of the city.

Boston’s Harborwalk extends from the Seaport to Dorchester, but it contains gaps along the way. Our project provides added connectivity to this critical open space asset.

The design for the site plan included a layered approach: streets, parks, the Harborwalk, courtyards, ground floors, work floor, and residential floors.

Existing infrastructure on the site is activated to include neighborhood amenities.