BSA Space

What were the circumstances of receiving the commission for this project?

The project is conceived as a model project for the BSA. They sought to lead by example in hiring an architect, developing a design, awarding a contract and building their headquarters on schedule and on budget. They held an design competition to select an architect based on one design board. They then shortlisted five firms to interview. After the interview, they awarded the contract. We thought there would be a lot of competition, since the competition-to-contract model is fairly rare in the US. We decided that we’d only enter if we had a good idea. A week before the deadline, we had a good idea, so we drew it up and submitted it.

Can you describe your design process for the building?

During a two week design competition, you need to have a strong idea that is extremely clear. The brief asked for an interior design for an organization that sought to be highly public. How, we asked ourselves, could we make this organization visible to the street, even though, most of the project was on the second floor? And also how could be encourage people to enter and climb to the second floor? Our strategy was to turn the soffit into a façade, and to turn that soffit into a stair, and then to turn the stair into a billboard. The three goals were met by a single surface folding stair that is continuous with the ceiling.

How does the completed building compare to the project as designed? Were there any dramatic changes between the two and/or lessons learned during construction?

The built project is uncannily similar to the design. The rendering shows an extremely thin stair, and we fabricated it out of 3/4"steel plate, to give it that almost unlikely thinness. In our competition renderings we used a bright color for the stair to get the jury’s attention, and in the built stair we also used a bright color to get the public’s attention. The making of something to look like a rendering actually takes a lot of work. We worked closely with a steel fabricator in Michigan to ensure that the detailing would support the illusion of the suspended figure of incredible thinness.

How does the building compare to other projects in your office, be it the same or other building types?

The BSA project is unique to our office. In fact, we wondered if the BSA didn’t choose to go through a competition process, they would’ve probably used the typical means of hiring an architect: a selection based on how many other similar projects the architects had completed. The design of a center for architecture is actually a fairly unique building type. We asked ourselves, “how many centers for architecture have you designed?” None! Our office does highly differentiated work: interactive architecture, public art, furniture, graphic and urban design, as well as architecture and interiors.

How does the building relate to contemporary architectural trends, be it sustainability, technology, etc.?

The use of digital tools has now become the norm. We can no longer brag about using a surface modeling program to “unroll” a developable surface and transfer the files directly to the fabricator for production. This workflow has gone from exception to norm. And that’s a good thing. The evidence of this normalization is everywhere, in the de-exoticising of digital tools and digital fabrication.

Our premise for the project was that the BSA sought an architectural medium to achieve its stated goal of communicating architecture to the general public and to the design community. The BSA has a publication (Architecture Boston magazine), a web site (architects.org), they hold conferences (ABX), and they have a gallery (BSA Space). They are all achieving the same goal. Our goal was to use architecture as a communication strategy. To that end, we combined the elements of the space, the stair and the soffit, with the media, the information that the BSA is already producing in the form of publications, lecture podcasts, events, etc. In addition to connecting the first and second floors, the stair is also the surface of projection for a media piece that projects live twitter feeds onto the stair, making it a site of information as well as a means of circulation.

Email interview conducted by John Hill.