OBSERVATORY COMMONS

harvard university, cambridge, ma

The program provides 22 units of faculty housing for Harvard University and a branch library for the City of Cambridge. The project site is between Concord Avenue, a busy thoroughfare, and a quiet residential street in Cambridge. Two internal streets run perpendicular from Concord Avenue into the complex. The brick paved streets modulate the building mass and reflect the scale and rhythm of the surrounding neighborhood. The paved courts also provide additional parking spaces for visitors and serve to open up the complex, providing a sense of community for faculty residents.

“...a superb example of sensitive integration of an institution and a neighborhood.” —The Boston Globe