The Center for Computing & Data Sciences at Boston University is an exemplary project and a defining landmark for the university. It transforms the Boston skyline, meets laudable sustainability goals, and encourages collaboration amongst students, faculty, and staff.
Towering boldly over the banks of the Charles River at 19 storeys, and spanning 345,000-square-feet, the Center is one of the largest, sustainable, operational fossil fuel-free building in Boston.
Striving to be energy efficient, the building uses onsite renewable energy through its closed-loop geothermal system for heating and cooling. Energy consumption is minimized throughout the Center by utilizing a high-performance envelope with external sun shading devices and enhanced heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.
The Center also elevates the ground floor for future resilience to climate change and protection against floods, and will be one of the first buildings at the university to implement its Zero Waste Initiative.
The Center was designed to meet the goals of the university’s Climate Action Plan and will contribute to its target of carbon neutrality by 2040. The building also aims to attain LEED Platinum and meet the city of Boston’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.
Realized as a vertical campus, its cantilevered volumes — a nod to the scale of adjacent two-and three-storey buildings — rotate around a central core, offering each department in the Center an outdoor space. Each volume is a "neighbourhood," giving departments their own identity while fostering cross-departmental collaboration with multiple shared spaces. .
Prioritizing human-centered design, the building maximizes opportunities for collaboration, interconnectivity, and innovation. The vertical design brings together the university’s mathematics, statistics, and computer science departments, building community amongst the 3,000 students, faculty, and staff studying and working in those areas.
With the well-being of its occupants in mind, green roofs and terraces are placed throughout the Center to connect students, faculty, and staff to the natural environment, and offer expansive views of the Charles River, the city of Boston, and the surrounding campus. These open spaces also serve as general-purpose areas that allow for increased connection and collaboration amongst the various departments that now call the Center home.
The entire building is walkable in a non-egress stair, elevators are visible and accessible. Inside, there are numerous collaboration spaces and whiteboard-clad walls. And each floor is characterized by vibrant colours including red, purple, and blue that are used for furniture and carpets to aid in wayfinding. Modular furniture systems allow for flexibility and adaptability, anticipating the needs of future faculties and student bodies while infusing comfort for all.
Below the tower, an open, porous podium extends out to hover over Commonwealth Avenue, animating the streetscape and broadcasting the energy of the building.
It functions as an urban porch for arrival, study, and gathering, and each of its storeys is connected by a central atrium and a collaboration staircase.
Inside, it accommodates larger programmatic volumes such as registrar classrooms and offers a series of zones for connection: the café, the cascading atrium stair, and the street studio.
KPMB designed a building that is not only environmentally sustainable but socially sustainable and reflects the university’s commitment to being a leader in computing and data sciences.
KPMB Team
Bruce Kuwabara (design partner), Marianne McKenna (partner-in-charge), Luigi LaRocca (founding principal), Paulo Rocha (partner), Lucy Timbers (senior associate), Kael Opie (senior associate), David Smythe (senior associate), Matt Krivosudsky (associate), Tyler Hall, Amin Monsefi, Fotini Pitoglou, Melissa Ng
Consultants
BR+A Consulting Engineers (MEP), Entuitive + LeMessurier Consultants (structural), Entuitive (building envelope), Richard Burck Associates Inc. (landscape), Dot Dash (lighting), Transsolar (climate), The Green Engineer (LEED), Nitsch Engineering Inc (civil), Soberman Engineering (elevator), Jensen Hughes (Fire and Life Safety), Haley & Aldrich (geotechnical, geotheramal), Acentech (acoustics/a.v.), RWDI Inc (environmental engineers), Robbie McCabe Consulting (hardware), Ricca Design Studios (food services), Brian Ballantyne Specifications (specifications)
