PAYETTE

In honor of World Fashion Day, we’re looking back at our entries to the annual IIDA Fashion Shows. The event allow us to challenge new methods of fabrication, and practice architecture at the most intimate scale. Our beloved Pearl, a life-size elephant, and her jesters walked the runway in the 2015 IIDA Fashion Show and took home first place. A lightweight skeleton of welded steel supports a skin of vinyl flooring, cut per our files at the Johnsonsite factory with a CNC ultrasonic knife. The surfaces of the skin were unrolled and a circle-packing algorithm was used to populate the perforation pattern. By digitally simulating the assembly logic, the fabrication process was streamlined and error free. Read more: https://lnkd.in/emG2icy8

The University of Massachusetts Amherst Sustainable Engineering Laboratories SEL design team recently took home the grand prize at the Embodied Carbon Challenge sponsored by MassCEC and Built Environments Plus. The SEL will be a new home for cutting edge research into clean energy, transportation and materials. The project is currently in development and uses strategies elements like a hybrid steel-timber structural system, timber curtainwalls, and optimized concrete mix to drive down embodied carbon. Read more on our blog: https://lnkd.in/er8wcbyz

The Black Panther Commemoration project uses public art to highlight the local history of social-justice activism. Payette and our long-time collaborators at Beyond Walls teamed with the Trustees, the largest nonprofit owner of community gardens in Boston, and the Social Impact Collective to support a community-led initiative in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Project artists Killion Mokwete (SIC, Northeastern) and Parke MacDowell worked with students and neighborhood residents to develop and execute the project. The project included crafting plaques that address the community’s rich history and the significance and necessity of social justice. These plaques are displayed in the garden, conveying messages of resilience and empowerment. The process was not just about building a gate; it represented breaking down barriers and creating a welcoming atmosphere for everyone. Read more on our blog: https://lnkd.in/eamKYF8x Video by Miguel Rubiera.

The Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is the vehicle we use to obtain valuable feedback from those who work and learn in the buildings we design, not only when it first becomes occupied, but over the life span of the building as well. Our typical process includes surveys that will give us feedback like utilization, performance, and real-time occupancy metrics. In looking deeper, we have found that the community and cultural elements are the most powerful, yet least articulated part of design. We believe that POE surveys should dig deeper into interactions and ask about the duration of time that people spend in each place, and provide feedback about qualities like transparency, acoustics, access to power or wifi – design elements that encourage people to linger and connect. We developed a new POE tool, Pulse, which enables us to survey and receive feedback on the experiential components of our spaces. Read more on our blog: https://lnkd.in/eAMqJ-Gj

In the latest installment by Space Strategies, we dive into the planning and approaches of makerspaces. These makerspaces have been designed in a variety of flavors and scales from community outreach spaces on the scale of a room to whole buildings dedicated to supporting a comprehensive experience-based engineering education. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eZ9NZiue

In today’s latest installment by Space Strategies, we investigate ways to understand and classify typologies of collaboration spaces. Read more about “nests, hives and clearings” on our blog: https://lnkd.in/erC6AP4t

Our Space Strategies studio is a collective of planners, architects and data scientists working at the intersection of design and planning to equip projects and clients with the tools to evolve and realize their vision. This week, we’ll be introducing you to the process and findings of Space Strategies, starting off with our latest insights on lab planning trends in biomedical research. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gq2_KcwC

On Monday, June 17th, we celebrated the grand opening of the new Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard in Kendall Square. The Ragon Institute is a unique union of Mass General, MIT and Harvard at the forefront of infectious disease research, such as HIV-AIDS and COVID-19. Read more about the project: https://lnkd.in/eST5236C

We are pleased to announce three projects have been honored with a 2024 AIA Education Facility Design Award, which celebrates state-of-the-art learning environments. 1. Northeastern University EXP 2. The University of Connecticut Science 1 Research Center 3. Frank and Maureen Wilkens Science and Engineering Center at Cape Cod Community College Congratulations to our clients, collaborators and project teams on these achievements!

The Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center at Lafayette College has been presented with an AIA Honor Award for Interior Architecture, which celebrates the most innovative and spectacular interior spaces across a range of projects. Congratulations to our client, collaborators and project team on this achievement! #designalways #aiainteriorarchitecture #aianational #aia24