Project overview: This replacement of a failing 1950’s development creates a vision for 21st century public housing. Mixed-use buildings line a busy avenue, their first-floor community spaces offering services for residents and neighbors. A new street flanked by four courtyards extends the city grid into the oversized block. Surrounding housing provides individual entries, gardens, and terraces for every apartment, protecting privacy while supporting community connectivity. Townhouses above accessible flats have front and back terraces connecting directly to grade. Solid and void, neutral colors and bright accents, galvanized stairs and wood screens create an engaging architectural language understood by a highly diverse community.
Project location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Firm name: Abacus Architects + Planners
Jury comments: This is a transformative project for the Rindge Ave. neighborhood of Cambridge, and a wonderful example of what we should strive for on all residential projects. Every consideration was taken at all scales, from urban to interior design. The efforts to reconnect the site to the surrounding streets, to bring service programs like WIC into nice street-facing commercial spaces while providing beautiful learning spaces for local youth, make this project one of the best affordable housing projects in Boston. This project demonstrates how wonderful it is to have beauty in our daily lives, as we learn, work, and share community–beauty as a unifier.
Client: Cambridge Housing Authority
Consultants: Allen & Major Associates, Inc.; Available Light, Inc.; ATC Group Services LLC; CleaResult Consulting, Inc.; Collective Wisdom Corporation; greenGoat; McPhail Associates, LLC; Lin Associates, Inc.; Nangle Engineering, Inc.; Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates, Inc.; Norian/Siani Engineering, Inc.; R.W. Sullivan Engineering; Fuss + O’Neill EnviroScience, LLC; Russo Barr Associates, Inc.; Safer Places, Inc.; Stantec, Inc.; W.T. Rich Company Inc.; World Tech Engineering LLC
Images/Photographer(s): Bruce T. Martin Photography; Damianos Photography; David Pollak
