Project

White Elephant Nantucket

Project Description

To celebrate the landmark hotel’s 100th anniversary, White Elephant Nantucket engaged Elkus Manfredi Architects to design a top-to-bottom transformation and renovation of the 54-room hotel and its 11 cottages.
The design draws inspiration from Nantucket—its history, the quality of its natural light, its landscape—to breathe new life into the historic buildings and immerse guests in an authentic Nantucket vacation experience.
The redesigned lobby sets the tone for relaxed elegance, and the hotel and its 11 guest cottages are filled with details that honor the colors, textures, and artistic legacy of the island.

Photography: Connie Zhou

Project

MassMutual

Project Description

With a curvilinear exterior and tiered set-backs, this new 17-story building establishes a uniquely elegant presence on Fan Pier— a distinctive glass façade configured in a pattern of contrasting angles, accentuating the building’s curvature and harmonizing with the waterfront neighborhood.
The interior provides human-centered design for nearly 1,000 associates in an activity-based work environment (ABW) with flexible, inclusive work areas that are fully supportive of employee health and wellness.
The building features a series of employee-focused amenities, including two outdoor terraces; a café serving healthy, freshly prepared food options; a barista bar; and a large, multipurpose collaboration and training space.
Spaces are organized around neighborhoods, which offer a robust variety of space and furniture types ranging from acoustically private to open collaboration areas.
This building has achieved LEED Platinum certification and employs strategies to cope with rising sea levels.

Robert Benson and Bruce Martin (exteriors), and Eric Laignel (interiors)

Project

401 Park Repositioning

Project Description

Opened in 1928, the 1M-square-foot Sears Roebuck & Co. store, warehouse, and distribution center was a retail powerhouse until Sears abandoned the building in 1988.
Now called 401 Park, the historic landmark is once again a neighborhood cornerstone, paying homage to the Fenway’s legacy while serving as a dynamic day/night destination for visitors, workers, and residents.
The mixed-use hub links Boston’s Fenway and Longwood Medical neighborhoods by activating common areas on the garage level, ground-floor lobby, and second-floor atria and lobby as well as the exterior realm.
Design solutions include creating a new social entry space, stripping interiors to reveal the building’s authentic character, creating a custom railing with Boston-centric names and places, creating a space for the 25,000-sf Time Out Market food hall, and introducing public art inside and out.

Photos: © Robert Benson and Connie Zhou

Architects created a grand atrium at 401 Park but cutting away sections of floor plate and revealing the building's industrial character

The three-level iron staircase leads from the ground-floor lobby up to the second level lobby with two office atria, or down to underground parking.

An extension of the second level lobby overlooks the constant activity in Time Out Market, as does the office space on the right-hand side.

Project

Publicis Groupe

Project Information

Publicis Groupe’s new 215,000-sf workplace was co-created with its 1,500 employees and our designers to reflect the identities and cultures of several different companies coming together for the first time.
The result is a flexible, 100% activity-based workplace that supports employee choice of where and how to work, while consistent floor plans unify the entire workplace.
Every floor features a joy space—an informal café on each floor that reflects the brand’s culture and preferences and provides an inviting space to collaborate, relax, and find inspiration.
Common amenity spaces include a grand two-story amphitheater, a makers lab, a conference center with reconfigurable walls, and a spacious top-floor café with a rooftop terrace for employees to come together for a meal, meeting, or functions.

Photography © Eric Laignel

A two-story amphitheatre at Publicis Groups allows for all-staff meetings and presentations

Top-floor communal cafe space at Publicis Groupe

Touch-down work setting for casual meetings or brainstorming with views of Post Office Square

Work neighborhood with variety of work stations for employees to choose from

Work terrace on Level 10 at Publicis Groupe in Boston

Project

Citizens Bank Corporate Campus

Project Description

123-acre activity-based campus design convenes 3,000 employees from disparate location into a unified complex that supports a diverse range of private and collaborative work environments.
Complex consists of an 800-seat contact center, two four-story office wings, and an amenities building, all joined by a central connector building/main entrance.
A comprehensive graphics program brands both the corporate buildings as well as the campus with bold, eye-catching displays featuring core Citizens’ messaging.
Sustainability highlights include high-efficiency energy and lighting systems throughout the campus, composting and waste oil recovery system in the cafeteria, and a centralized waste-processing program to handle recycling and trash.

Photographer: Evan Joseph

Technology bar at Citizens Bank Corporate Campus

connector hallway at Citizens Bank Corporate Campus

office areas at Citizens Bank Corporate Campus

Cafeteria at Citizens Bank Corporate Campus

Project

Draper

“Together with Elkus Manfredi, we are creating the next generation of Draper — collaborative, collegial, entrepreneurial, fostering open innovation while maintaining strict security protocols demanded by our work.”

Elizabeth Mora

Chief Administrative Officer, Vice President of Finance and Administration

Project Description

Reinvented the 456,055-square-foot headquarters—organized around a new steel and glass atrium—to create a more open work environment ripe for spontaneous exchanges.
The atrium transforms a previously outdoor plaza into a vibrant space that fosters collaboration and exploration both with a public side and an employee-only side.
Interior executive area features a 4:1 ratio of open workstations to private offices, all of which are glass-fronted to reduce hierarchy and maintain transparency across all departments.
Daylight reaches deep into all work areas, and pops of bright color infuse the offices with vitality.

Photographer: Jasper Sanidad, Andrew Bordwin, and Eric Laignel

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Project

Emerson College — Two Boylston Place & Dining Center

Project Description

18-story, 375-bed residence hall offers suites, single, double, and triple student residences in the heart of the college’s growing campus in Boston’s historic Theatre District.
Features five themed, destination common rooms that address the urban campus’s need for indoor and outdoor communal student spaces.
Totaling 18,000 square feet and seating 550, the Dining Center’s two distinct levels are connected by a grand open staircase.
Demonstrates a creative reinvention/restoration of three long-underutilized retail spaces on the College’s Theatre District campus.
Certified LEED-NC Gold while preserving and incorporating the façade of an historic Ancient Landmark Building into the new structure.

Photographer: Peter Vanderwarker

Project

Pier 4

Project Description

Mixed use office building with 20,000 square feet of rentable retail space on the ground floor and 367,400 square feet of rentable, first-class office space on the upper 12 floors..
Ground floor activated with restaurants, cafes, shops, and a pass-through lobby that connects to the public Harborwalk.
Penthouse level includes a terrace on the northwest side of the building overlooking Boston Harbor and the city skyline.
The use of a non-interlocking curtainwall marks an architectural first in Boston, allowing each façade to interact with its neighbors.

Photographer: Magda Biernat

“Each massing move and its correspondent façade responds to the surrounding exterior site elements. The most visible, the East façade, expresses dynamic, meandering movement that is achieved by the shifting of paired floors. These moves have been carefully studied to avoid any interlocking of the intersecting floors.”

Christian Galvao

Vice President, Architectural Designer, Elkus Manfredi Architects

Project

Boston University Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre and College of Fine Arts Production Center

“It is exciting to have this new state-of-the-art theater as the centerpiece for the role that the students and faculty of the School of Theatre play in infusing the arts into our campus.”

Robert A. Brown

President, Boston University

Project Description

The 75,000-sf facility unifies the College of Fine Arts School of Theatre with features that support all aspects of theatre production and performance arts.
Innovative building materials contribute to the architecturally stunning façade that elevates the university’s presence on Commonwealth Avenue.
Program elements include a 21,000-square-foot multi-functional studio theatre for an audience of 250; a Production Center that houses paint, set, and scene shops; plus faculty offices and teaching spaces.

Photographer: Robert Benson & Eric Laignel

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Set production and painting area in the BU Booth Theatre

Project

The Verb Hotel

“The Verb Hotel is a character. It’s authentic. It has rock and roll experience. With our history, we are in tune with the beat of the Fenway, which gives us the confidence to be a little rebellious. It’s in our nature to have fun, to be genuine, to be memorable, to make you smile. Check in, tune out.”

Robin Brown

Principal, Spot On Ventures

Project Description

Inspired by its mid-century motor inn roots, the renovation of this two-story 93-key hotel in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood celebrates the area’s famed rock scene from the ‘60s to the ‘90s.
The transformation of this 1959 Howard Johnson’s motel creates a quirky, friendly, contemporary hotel while retaining its original footprint surrounding the rebuilt courtyard pool.
The new lobby’s rock-era details include authentic rock memorabilia; guestrooms feature retro-inspired lighting, art, and furniture.

Photography: Adrian Wilson, Andrew Bordwin

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Boston Preservation Alliance

Preservation Achievement Award

Award

Boston Magazine

Best of Boston – Best Boutique Hotel

Hospitality Design Magazine

Finalist – Boutique/Lifestyle Hotel

Award

Interior Design Magazine

Best of Year Honoree

Retail Design Institute

Innovation Award in Historic Preservation – International Store Design Awards