Sited along Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace in Boston, the 11-story massing for BIDMC’s Klarman Building is precisely tuned to optimize views, solar performance and thermal comfort for patients and their families. Its distinctive serrated terracotta façade reflects the scale and cadence of individual patient rooms, optimizing thermal performance while also providing a delicate scale and texture to the façade.
A continuous vertical glass gasket frames the Sky Lobby on the inpatient floors and dramatically transitions to form pedestrian bridges connecting the campus with public amenities including a café, lounge, surgical waiting areas and the Sky Garden on the podium levels. At the street level, the building is cantilevered 30’ above the sidewalk to increase the width of the public realm and to shape an intimate series of landscape spaces with the building’s form and materiality taking the shape of a garden wall. The main lobby is entered through an opening in the garden wall, revealing a 30’ high wall of glass looking directly into the Emerald Necklace.