On January 15, PAYETTE celebrated the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by convening our sixth annual Day of Service. This year we undertook five design projects for our community partners. This is the first in a series of five posts, highlighting each of our community partners and their projects.
The East Boston Neighborhood Health Center (EBNHC), soon to be NeighborHealth, is the largest community-focused health system in MA and believes that care is better in community. The EBNHC focuses on delivering high-quality health care that is compassionate, people-centric, culturally appropriate and open to all. A dedicated team of 11 people from various departments at PAYETTE including architecture, building science and marketing, joined together to create a proposal to improve the exterior appearance for one of EBNHC’s buildings located in East Boston.
Project Brief
The project focuses on the façade renovation for EBNHC’s location on Orleans Street in East Boston, which is a combination of two structures. The process began with an insightful initial meeting with key members from EBNHC to understand their needs and aspirations. Key goals included making the building aesthetically more inviting, creating a cohesion between the two structures, highlighting the main entrance and incorporating community art. This building will house their Education and Training Institute and Community convening center, so it was important to our partner that the exterior was improved to be more inviting to the public.
After a visit to the site and further conversations with members from the organization, our team immersed ourselves in a full-day design charette. We broke into working groups to brainstorm and ideate innovative design strategies through quick sketches, iterative photoshopping, modeling and taking advantage of our diverse expertise in code requirement, performance, graphic design and conceptualization. To provide EBNHC with the most flexibility, we proposed three levels of intervention in the final proposal. Each level had an increasing amount of cost, time and community involvement implications.
Proposal
PAYETTE’s proposal reimagines the façade by creating a connective ribbon between the two building entries for cohesion. Supplementary improvements to the rest of the building façade incorporate color and graphics to beautify the building appearance, building upon the Level 1 plan. Within each of the 3 levels of intervention, more detail and options are provided for future renovations.
Level 1:
- Repaint buildings using EBNHC’s color palette to highlight building entry and enliven façade.
- Replace existing canopy with new metal framed overhang at main entry.
- Add wall mounted lighting to emphasize façade texture.
- Provide painted wall signage near entrance.
- General performance improvements to gutters and entry doors.
Level 2:
- Use color blocking and playful forms painted on building.
- Provide mural by local artist/community that wraps building corner.
- Lengthen metal canopy to extend entire length of connection bar.
- Provide canopy mounted lighting.
- Provide façade accent lighting below gutter to highlight existing texture.
- Incorporate interior layout improvements to enlarge the main entrance.
Level 3:
- Repurpose existing billboard structure as a sculpture by a local artist.
- Incorporate benches, planting beds and wood/ metal screen mounted to wall to introduce biophilic texture and interaction with the public.
- Add parklet at corner of building with trees and benches.
- Replace windows and doors.
Parklet:
To enhance curb appeal, the incorporation of trees was proposed. This would engage the Tree Eastie initiative which provides trees around East Boston. Rather than providing them at the street edge and compromising the sidewalk width, the team proposed clustering them together to create a parklet.
The team was thrilled to have our community partner in the office and presented the project to them in person. It was incredibly rewarding to see their excitement and receive their feedback on the work provided. We are honored to continue PAYETTE’s commitment to pro bono projects as a beacon of positive change, engaging diverse people within our office and the community beyond.
Community Partner:
East Boston Neighborhood Health Center (EBNHC)
PAYETTE Team:
Emilio Cardarelli
Endian Xu
Jessica Jorge
Meredith Hutto
Michael Koliner
Claire Pawlecki
Parke MacDowell
Sahithi Datla
Susan Blomquist
Eamonn Meagher
Luisa Haller
The 2025 OpenLAB Boston studio work will be exhibited at Virginia Tech Monday, March 2nd through Wednesday, March 4th.
Please join us for the following events on Monday, March 2nd:
11:00am - Lecture with Parke MacDowell
1:00pm Lobby talk with Kevin Sullivan
This year’s studio identifies seven sites along the frayed edges of Boston’s Greenway. The Greenway is a one-mile-long linear park running through the heart of the city, reconnecting downtown Boston with its waterfront. Many of the parcels along its edges remain undeveloped and present mute, blank facades to the public realm. Addressing and repairing these edges through acts of infilling, layering, grafting, framing, and placemaking is the core focus of the studio—SUTURE.