Diller Scofidio + Renfro designs northeast's tallest mass timber tower for BU

Diller Scofidio + Renfro

(DS+R) recently announced a design at

Boston University

that’s part of an institutional expansion and goal of achieving carbon neutrality on the Charles River campus by the year 2040.

The proposal grants a new home to the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, which was established after a naming donation in 2014. Standing 186 feet and 12 stories, it will be realized as the tallest mass timber structural design in the northeastern United States.

The choice of a mass timber structural frame for the 70,000-square-foot building reduces its embodied carbon footprint by 87%. This adds to the energy savings offered by combing installed solar screens and a triple-glazed envelope system. DS+R notes that 85% of all its spaces require no perimeter heating or cooling.

Research spaces are arranged in a vertical stack to culminate in double-heighted, revealed "living rooms" that "broadcast" the internal activities along its facade.

Sean A. Gallagher, the firm’s Project Leader and Director of Sustainable Design, frames it as part of the university’s effort to "make urban environments healthier, more vibrant places to live," adding that it likewise "marks a significant step toward densifying urban centers in a carbon-neutral way."

DS+R says they expect construction to be completed by 2027. The BU building would join the firm’s ICA Boston and MIT Metropolitan Warehouse renovation projects as another high-profile Boston-area design. We recently covered the

death of co-founder Ricardo Scofidio

at the age of 89.