The groundbreaking ceremony for the Boston Innovation Center, designed by local architecture firm Hacin + Associates, took place today [despite the chilly rain!] in Boston’s newly designated Innovation District.
According to Mayor Menino's speech at the event today, the Boston Innovation Center is the first freestanding city-sponsored innovation center of its kind in the country. Located in the heart of Seaport Square, it will serve as an anchor in this emerging district, a natural gathering place adjacent to an MBTA Silver Line station, a Hubway bike-sharing location, and parking. The Boston Innovation Center will be the first project built for Boston Global Investors’ 23-acre waterfront development, Seaport Square.
The 12,000 SF facility will provide space for promising companies and executives to meet and exchange ideas, and to host business and social events. It will include a restaurant that will be open to the public; a flexible assembly space with a capacity of 250 seats; a gathering space with lounge seating and worktables; and several flex spaces called “pods”, meant to support a variety of uses including meetings, classes, and exhibitions. The building is the result of a partnership between the City of Boston, Boston Global Investors, and the Cambridge Innovation Center. The facility will be operated by the Cambridge Innovation Center, an organization that supports start-up ventures in Kendall Square.
Of the unusual partnerships that are making this building a possibility, David Hacin says, “This building represents a remarkable collaboration, both public and private interests working together to build a better Boston. We hope the innovation center will be a symbol not only for the Innovation District but for the future of our city.”
Built on the site of the former waterfront railyards, the building’s architecture is inspired in both material and form by the industrial and nautical architecture that used to characterize this area. The building has two basic parts: a long low bar that references the train cars that used to fill the railyards, and an angular shell that picks up on the materials and shapes of the boats and warehouses of the shipping industry.
The landscape design, by Reed Hilderbrand, will incorporate birch trees at the perimeter to help insulate the building from traffic and parking areas, while public plazas will maintain clear connections to the adjacent present and future parks. A pathway directly adjacent to the Innovation Center will connect the MBTA stop on Seaport Boulevard to the Institute of Contemporary Art on Northern Avenue.