2001 Rotch Scholar - Lorenzo Mattii

A Moored Community

The site is primarily that of an edge condition. It is located on the banks of the Fort Point Channel, across from downtown Boston's Financial District and geographically within the Fan Pier. The site has neither a front nor a back. And in addition to its two faced nature, the site is also wedged between the Old Northern Avenue Bridge to its north and its wishful replacement, the Evelyn Moakley Bridge to its south. While presented on the waterfront with a spectacular view of the financial district to the west, it also owes its allegiance to the east, the emerging Fan Pier District, a new urban area undergoing an extensive revitalization. Whereas the Old Northern Avenue Bridge hits the shore at the point where water meets land, the new bridge lands one block inland riding high past the site and intersecting beyond with Sleeper Street. Unlike the older bridge, which until recently rotated 90 degrees in order to let through water traffic, the Evelyn Moakley Bridge was constructed higher to let traffic flow beneath it. As a result the bridge passes over the granite bulkhead, the true edge of the Fan Pier.

This distinction between how each bridge relates to the water's edge became a starting point for an architecture that would ultimately have two public fronts. By carving away at the land beneath the Evelyn Moakley Bridge and redefining the water's edge a new bulkhead is formed. Similar to its predecessor, now the new bridge hits shoreline. It is this precise point that defines the gateway into the Fan Pier District. And a new architecture reveals itself straddling the threshold. It is as much a part of the water as it is a part of the land.

The new bulkhead provides the foundations for a concrete superstructure that divides the architecture into two components, a building projecting over water and a building sitting on land. Contained by the former and carved out of the latter, a courtyard is formed and is oriented true north gathering cool light during the day. At night it glows over the bay, coupling itself with the concave luminary of the Federal Courthouse nearby.

The component to the east of this vertical space, the land building, is in the Fan Pier District, overlooking the ongoing master plan. It begins the day; it houses daytime activity: retail on the ground floor, Research Center above, and the office worker, the daytime commuter. Projecting over the channel is the water building, facing the west, which ends the day. In addition to the restaurant at the ground level and a loggia type garden above, it houses the residences. Partially sheltered by a translucent membrane, each balcony and apartment comes to life as the afternoon light sets.

The dichotomy between the building of work and that of repose adds to the vitality of this edge building, repeatedly in transition as its program shifts from east to west and back again; as one side lights up, the other side shuts down.

An invisible pulse that originates within the interior complements this cyclical pattern of activity reflected on the exterior. Central to the building's life support system is the multi-story vertical volume, a greenhouse and chimney. It is the gatherer of indirect natural light during the day, dispelling hot air during the summer and passively heating up cold air during the winter. While it uses the eastern façade as a giant louver exchanging external air within its cavity plenum floors, it uses the western façade as a filter, regulating natural light and currents flowing through the occupied spaces.

However, the south façade stands alone, a trombe wall. Its appearance is austere and it respects the monumental nature of the bridge landing below it. Its elevation mitigates the building's diurnal metamorphosis. As one side responds to the urban edge, and the other to the water's edge, the concrete tower stakes out the edge that began the evolution.