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Kendall Square Workplace

Kendall Square Workplace

Cambridge, MA, United States

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Other Projects by Merge Architects

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Jackson Hole Workforce Housing

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Northeastern University -Columbus Place Lobby

Kendall Square Workplace

Cambridge, MA, United States

Firm

Merge Architects

Type

Commercial › Office

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2018

Tasked with bringing spatial variety but conceptual cohesion to the renovation of over 60,000 square feet of the New England headquarters of a global technology company, Merge adapted the tradition of office-as-landscape with a definitively local emphasis.

Informed by the mid 20th century strategy of bürolandschaft – in which the office is analogous to an ecology – as well as contemporary concepts of biophilia and mediated environments, each of the seven floors was understood as a thematic biome. Stacked in section and varying in program, collaborative spaces occupy a gorge, open offices are found amidst a forest, and dining facilities embody a mountain peak (fittingly, the top floor).

Working with and around the building’s elevator core and waffle slab structure, landscape references – from organic circulation paths to abstracted graphics – and natural elements – from raw wood to live plants – were incorporated to actualize and advance the hybrid biological/ technological environments perhaps envisioned by cybernetic theorists and computer scientists.

Key collaborative and connective spaces throughout represent moments of intensive craft. Perforated metal mesh creates constellations over a kitchen counter then spins out to screen casual meeting spaces. Corridors are clad in CNC-cut plywood panels, their leafy fractal patterns revealing the softness of acoustic felt beyond. Solo seats and group nooks, like color-saturated caverns, are subtracted from the solidity of the concrete core. Cross-laminated timber panels are assembled into a stair linking a meeting room mezzanine to a cafe below. At high altitude, in the summit dining space, natural allusions slip into the surreal with a dreamy graphics sequence that melds into cloud-like overhead installations, climbing-cable veiled booths, and a tent-sheltered tea station.

The result is a workplace both cutting edge and comfortable, novel and familiar, productive and social.

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Kendall Square Workplace

Cambridge, MA, United States

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Kendall Square Workplace

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Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team

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Kendall Square Workplace

Cambridge, MA, United States

Other Projects by Merge Architects

Jackson Hole Workforce Housing

EMS Training Facility

GrubStreet

Beverly Clinic

City Modern - Duplettes II

Marginal Street Housing III

West Broadway Housing

Cable Mills - River Houses

Kendal Wellness Center

Ten Percent Happier

Six-Not-So-Flat

Condor Street Housing I

Cable Mills - Modern Mill

E+ Housing Competition

DotMod

Fort Hill Houses

Allandale Residences

Cable Mills - River Houses

MIT Toy Lab

Northeastern University -Columbus Place Lobby

Kendall Square Workplace

Cambridge, MA, United States

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team