
I was fortunate to attend an award sponsored by Unilock at Showcase Live in Patriot Place. The event was a wonderful evening of fine dining and celebration. The award honored design professionals; Arrowstreet being amongst those honored with an award of Excellence in Design for the MBTA Wonderland Project located in Revere. It was an honor to accept the award on behalf of the design team who made calculated decisions to create what is an exceptional design.
As a participant on the BSA’s Committee for the Advancement of Sustainability, I wanted to share some information about a free forum on June 19th. The committee promotes a sustainable agenda beyond the immediate focus of architectural practice, and engages other organizations in a dialogue that promotes sustainable principles. This year our task has been to organize a forum which will focus on empowering municipalities across Massachusetts to develop sustainable strategies for buildings, infrastructure, and planning…
Arrowstreet staff ventured across the river and into Cambridge to tour the 450 Kendall Street (Parcel G) project, which is currently in the middle of construction. The project is a new, 68,000-sf, five-story office/lab building with retail space on the first floor…
I had the privilege of acting as co-chair for one of the four sites in the ULI Living with Water: The Urban Implications Charette. This event provided an opportunity for a broad range of professionals with diverse expertise to discuss and strategize resiliency strategies related to sea level rise and inland flooding. The goal of the event was to develop real strategies related to planning, design, and public policy to address ongoing and future impacts of climate change…
Three members of the Arrowstreet team – Matt Rice, Pat Cornelison, and Larry Spang – will be speaking at ABX (Architecture Boston Expo) sessions taking place in October. Information is provided in the post; official registration will open at a later date…
Our Fenway High School addition and renovation project officially began construction with a wonderfully attended groundbreaking on May 8th (video is available). The groundbreaking demonstrated the commitment the City of Boston, Boston Public Schools and Fenway High School have towards its students and the surrounding neighborhoods…

My son went to visit Battleship Cove in Fall River with his Boy Scout Troop and we all had a chance to spend the night on the USS Massachusetts. It was quite an adventure and a lot of fun to explore. As a “Navy Brat” myself, it brought back memories visiting the ship where my dad used to serve. He was a lithographer, and as part of his shop, there was a small drafting and design contingent. The group was particularly useful when needing to come up with a quick design for a repair, especially while out to sea on a Destroyer or Submarine Tender. Sketches and plans would then be conveyed to a foundry floating in the middle of the ocean…
Recently in Somerville, TED’s “Ideas Worth Spreading,” were in full motion, with a local twist! Located at the Arrowstreet-designed Brooklyn Boulders rock climbing gym, TEDxSomerville’s Movement-themed event was a 6-hour long series of talks and performances by local community members. Aptly located, the event centered around the theme of “motion” – from physical to mental and individual to communal.
As co-chair of ULI Boston’s Building Resilience Task Force, I am joining other ULI members in a design charrette titled Living with Water: The Urban Implications, on May 8th…
- The West Conference Room overlooking Post Office Square // Photo by Ed Wonsek
- The Central Conference Room joins the office with its translucent entry // Photo by Ed Wonsek
- Decompression zone // Photo by Ed Wonsek
- Kitchen area // Photo by Ed Wonsek
- The open office supports collaboration and individual work spaces // Photo by Ed Wonsek
- Reception area // Photo by Ed Wonsek
- Open and collaborative environment while supporting various meeting types // Photo by Ed Wonsek
- High-top tables create an easier exchange of ideas // Ed Wonsek
- The Media Lounge - where imagination and interactivity meet // Photo by Ed Wonsek
Since moving into our studio in Post Office Square in February, we have been settling into our new space. The office design better accommodates the working style of our studio, with open site lines and work areas, and plenty of communal work spaces to accommodate collaboration and full plan sets. Our conference rooms especially have been teaming with activity, as the views have been helpful to some of our clients as they meet with business partners to discuss their projects. If you haven’t been by, we hope to see you soon.
My students celebrated the end of their semester last night at the awards ceremony for the FHLB Affordable Housing Development Competition. Over the past six weeks they have been working with Donald Alexis from the Caribbean Integration Community Development (CICD) along with architecture and policy students from Harvard’s Kennedy School and Northeastern to design an affordable housing proposal in Mattapan…

Yesterday we broke ground on the Hampton Business District at Gabreski , a new business and technology center on Long Island. With almost a half million square feet of office, warehouse, and showroom space, as well as a hotel, the project will offer a home for the growing number of businesses looking to set up shop in the Hamptons.
I am speaking on the topic of sustainability for a webinar hosted on May 7 from 2-3pm by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Shopping Centers Today magazine. This is part of a new series of short retail events, called SCT Live, to be held in targeted regions throughout the country…
The Building Systems Committee at the BSA recently held a charrette on the business of architecture. The charrette was part of a larger symposium titled The Changing Ecosystem for Design Services, which included presentations by American Institute of Architects’ economist Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA and Phil Bernstein, FAIA. Both presenters discussed current trends and new modes of collaboration that are crossing the traditional boundaries of practice…

If we have to work during Opening Day at Fenway, at least we have ice cream.

On March 23rd, I attended the Governor Forum on Energy, the Environment and the Innovation Economy at Faneuil Hall. The forum set the stage for Massachusetts Gubernatorial candidates to provide their position on sustainability topics affecting the Commonwealth as well as discusses opportunities to elevate sustainability goals…
Pat Cornelison and I went to Los Angeles to attend ULI’s Healthy Places conference, a very interesting conference on an important topic. I will post about that experience in a separate blog post, but first, I’d like to comment on something else…
Last night, Arrowstreet sponsored CitySprouts annual Dig It! event on March 13 at the Liberty Hotel from 6-8:30pm. The event celebrated garden-based learning and raised funds for the organization’s program in Boston and Cambridge public schools.
We would like to welcome the Cambridge Innovation Center to the Financial District/Post Office Square area, as discussed in the Boston Globe. Given our recent move to Post Office Square, we are pleased to see that the face of the District is continuing to evolve to include a broad make-up of firm types, including creative and technology incubators.
On Thursday April 10th, 2014, I will be joining a panel at the Making Spaces Work …Overtime concurrent session at the Urban Land Institute’s Spring Meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The session will take place from 2:45pm – 4:00pm…

President Barack Obama was at the Arrowstreet-designed Artists for Humanity EpiCenter last night. It’s exciting to see the building and the program continue to attract attention not only from the local community, but also among significant players on the national and international stage…
If you read the Sunday edition of the Boston Globe this past weekend, you may have come across the article about the new East Boston branch of the Boston Public Library. Arrowstreet Graphic Design served as the environmental graphics consultant to William Rawn Associates. We designed the engraved pavers, mentioned in the article, along with the interpretive panels in the library’s stormwater garden. I attended the opening of the library with my family this past November where my son examined the finished product. Thankfully, it passed inspection.
We have been lucky enough to host many friends of the firm over the last two weeks in our new space. For those of you who haven’t yet had a chance to visit, we took a couple of photos so you can get an idea of where we work…
This week, I attended a symposium about Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing. PACE is a way for property owners to fund energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. The Massachusetts program is also looking at funding for resiliency measures. Secretary Richard Sullivan’s opening remarks reiterated the Governor’s commitment to a sustainable energy future in Massachusetts…
Notwithstanding this week’s winter storms, steel erection has topped off at 450 Kendall Street in Cambridge today (formerly referred to as Parcel G). Biomed Realty is the Owner, John Moriaty & Associates (JMA) is the Builder, and Arrowstreet the architect for this jewel-like building in the heart of Kendall Sq…