After our successful third annual Festivus celebration in December, PAYETTE’s Friday afternoon had a little twist this past week. Reviving our Olympic themed celebrations, our usual Friday afternoon on the lido deck turned into a dart-gun, human-curling filled afternoon of competition. Hosted by the hardworking Skolkovo design team, the event heated up with target practice, curling and doubles ping pong in celebration of the Winter Olympic Games that opened the same day in Socchi.
As a recent hire to the firm, the office culture here at PAYETTE has revealed itself to be exciting, dynamic and ever so important. Team building opportunities, such as this one, are a great chance for both new and seasoned employees to meet and mingle. Everyone is able to get to know each other on a much more personal and intimate level, beyond a strictly professional relationship. (What’s more personal than thrashing a colleague in ping-pong anyway?) This sort of attitude is vital to the success of PAYETTE. The firm fosters a very collaborative approach to design, not only with office events, but with a top down mentality of cooperation. Personally, this has been the most striking aspect of working here.
Beyond the stress relief, the Olympic-themed celebration provided a great opportunity for the Skolkovo team to share their progress with the office. In-between rounds of curling and ping pong, people were able to learn about the development of the Skolkovo University. With work pinned up throughout the event, the team was able to display their massive effort on this multiphase 200,000 SQM (more than 2 million square feet) project. The project has been a huge undertaking for PAYETTE; keeping the current team of twelve very busy. This project, designed in partnership with Herzog & De Meuron, is an exciting project in-progress in the office right now. The university is striving to become a key world organization that fosters, research, entrepreneurship and innovation. With its unique massing strategy, high level technological demands and complex programming efforts, it is worth keeping an eye on. With the core and shell of the first phase complete, there will definitely be more news coming from Russia soon.
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.