Project Description
2018 P/A Awards
Honorable Mention
“I think it’s super elegant. It has some intimate moves on the façade, which are a big challenge in a project of this size.” —juror Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter, AIA
NADAAA and Perkins+Will’s proposal for A Cambridge Gateway is in fact much more than a residential project: Intended as full-service urban oasis, the design seeks to link the community of Kendall Square with one of its largest institutional neighbors, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The area and the school are familiar territory to NADAAA (the firm is located across the Charles River in Boston, and founding principal Nader Tehrani served as head of MIT’s architecture program for four years), and the building attempts to serve both communities with an array of functions, including a retail concourse on the block’s northwest corner, a commodious “forum” for public events, a university admissions office, day care facilities, and graduate student housing that is located in the high-rise component.
In a maneuver that has become fairly de rigueur for Tehrani’s office, all of this is composed so as to multiply and densify the patterns of use: At ground-level, a through-block circulatory route carries visitors into and across the site; above, terraces dot the upper reaches of the volume. Almost every detail of the plan appears aimed at accelerating the complex’s functional dynamism, with even a slight deflection in the wall of the auditorium helping to draw foot traffic from Main Street towards the landscaped corridor to the south. And given the Gateway’s proximity to major thoroughfares and public transit, there should be plenty of foot traffic to draw, day and night.
Project Credits
Project: A Cambridge Gateway, Cambridge, Mass.
Client: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Design Architect: NADAAA, Boston and New York . Nader Tehrani, Katherine Faulkner, AIA (principals-in-charge); Harry Lowd (project manager); Tom Beresford (project architect); Nick Safley, Peter Osborne, Matthew Waxman, Ali Sherif, Ilia Yazdanpanah, Todd Fix, Amin Tadj, Arthur Chang, AIA (project team)
Architect of Record: Perkins+Will, Boston . David Damon, AIA (principal-in-charge); Andrew Grote, AIA (project manager); Grace Nugroho, AIA (project architect); Athena Patira, AIA, Daniel Szczebak, Ruoxi Cui, Heather Miller, Jennifer Miller, Kate Hriczo, Peter Graffunder, Philippe Genereux, AIA, Carolina Otero, Stephen Messinger, AIA (project team)
Structural Engineer: Odeh Engineers
M/E/P/FP Engineer: Arup
Civil Engineer: Nitsch Engineering
Landscape Architecture: Landworks Studio (playspace and terraces); Hargreaves Associates (open space)
Lighting Design: Lam Partners
Contractor/Construction Manager: Turner Construction Co.
Size: 398,300 gross square feet
Cost: Withheld
Read about the other winners of the 65th Annual Progressive Architecture Awards.
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
A Cambridge Gateway is part of a multi-building, mixed-use planned urban development for MIT that will re-invent the dynamic Kendall Square district in Cambridge, MA. As a complex urban development, it entails many stakeholders, bringing together the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, constituencies from the city, business owners, and research companies. The Gateway Plaza acts as a connector to adjacent institutional and commercial districts, as well as a place of public gatherings of every size.