Creating a visible science hub at City Point

180 CityPoint

Perched along Route 128 in Waltham, Massachusetts sits the 180 CityPoint building—the gentle curved form engages with the highway and bends into the CityPoint Office Park campus. The developer engaged our architecture and interior design team to help attract tenants to this commercial center.

With nearly 80 feet (24 metres) of grade change, we designed the building to respond to the site by tucking structured parking into the base of the hill and letting the lab floors stack above, emerging from the podium with access to light and views. Inspired by the movement and speed of the highway, the façade is organized as two primary expressions. The western side creates a dynamic texture across six stories of unitized curtainwall with extruded vertical aluminum fins. The eastern one is composed of patterned architectural precast with ribbon windows and two-story glass expressions at the corners. We designed the garage podium façade as an undulating system of profiled fins that visually change as a viewer passes.

Interior amenities such as a basketball court, food hall, and coworking nexus are designed to attract and mix employees from the adjacent City Point buildings. Whether witnessing the façade on the highway, or interacting with the campus, 180 CityPoint creates a dynamic experience for passersby and occupants.