By funkhaus
This year at the BSA Design Awards, the Studio Luz team was proud to receive an Honor Award in the Small Firms Adaptive Reuse/Renovation/Historic Preservation Category for our work on the 69 Church Street Residences. Principal Anthony Piermarini led the SLA team in creating a design that preserves the historic beauty of the building while incorporating a new modern addition that extends from the façades to the interiors. “When it comes to historic preservation, it’s an accomplishment if you’re able to avoid the mistakes of the past while celebrating their successes in a contemporary context,” he shares. “In the case of Church Street, it was especially meaningful because this building will help tell the history of the neighborhood while supporting its continued growth.”
Once a 1920’s film warehouse in the Historical Bay Village Neighborhood of Boston, 69 Church Street is now the site of 6 mixed-use residential units. Our team, led by Anthony, worked with developers J.B.Ventures and TCR Development to bring this building to its current iteration, which required innovation and inventiveness on all levels. “Our structural engineers, Roome & Guarracino, really flexed their creativity to bring together older forms of masonry and concrete construction with new forms of steel construction and wood framing, all of which allows the building to persevere and be much more resilient and robust in the long run,” says Anthony.
Partnership and troubleshooting were an essential part of the process behind this award-winning project. “When you’re working with an old building, there are a lot of factors that you just can’t anticipate,” says Anthony. “The engineers, contractor team, ownership, and the project site manager navigated a lot of challenges with us, and always focused on working towards solutions — we all learned about constraints while dealing with old buildings, so, we rolled up our sleeves and learned from them, and ultimately made those constraints work to our advantage.” The integration of new wood and steel structure, as well as energy recovery ventilation, will prolong the lifespan of these buildings and do it sustainably.
One of the ways we had to adjust throughout the design process was with the process of selecting materials. Studio Luz explored material options for the facade based on the historic commission’s approval, and had proposed some bronze tone panels. However, considering the project ran through the pandemic, we experienced some material procurement issues. Luckily, Pure+FreeForm worked with us to find materials that were in stock and fit the budget that we initially had, which was not easy to do. “The panels were a little brighter than we initially planned — we thought it would have a bit more patina in terms of the bronzing,” says Anthony. “But they took on some of the brighter tones of the art deco period that you see in the Bay Village neighborhood, and it turned out wonderfully because it captured some of the art deco spirit.
The Church Street project, and now our BSA award for it, serves as an important reminder that some of the most sustainable buildings are existing buildings. “It’s always nice to be recognized by your peers, but beyond that, it’s also about recognizing that there’s value in restoring old buildings, and that they can work beautifully in dialogue with contemporary architecture. There are a lot of great existing examples of that, and I’m glad that we can provide another one.”
Learn more about our project team and consultants who contributed to 69 Church Street here, and read more of Anthony’s insight about designing the modern addition and restoring the historical facade here.
BSA Awards images by Paige McWhorter