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East Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Architects: Theodore Touloukian, Touloukian Touloukian Inc.
Landscape Architects: Halvorson Design
Energy Consultants: Resilient Buildings Group, Inc.
Client: Rock Development

Located in East Boston, this new multi-family residential development focuses on resiliency planning and Chapter 91 public spaces for the growing neighborhood showing how both requirements can be designed to benefit each other.

The site features a central courtyard, which helps elevate the building access points above the FEMA floodplains and gently slopes down towards the waterfront using native plantings and rain gardens to help control the on-site stormwater.

Amenities include a dry floodproofed underground parking garage, access to the "urban beach," and public kayak storage. An independent townhouse to the site's residential side helps bridge the small scale residential street language into the larger and modernly detailed development abutting large public spaces of the beach and parkway.

As part of the company’s sustainability efforts, the team is also aiming to make this building carbon-neutral in accordance with the LEED Zero Carbon certification requirements. In addition to the carbon avoided through the company’s energy-efficient design and selection of materials, they also had to resolve the impact of transportation on the carbon output of this building by assuming that 10% of residents will walk or bike; 20% of residents will utilize public transportation; 50% will carpool; and 20% will drive alone-- resulting in approximately 206,513 pounds of CO2 per year.

In order to achieve a carbon balance of zero, the client chose to pursue purchasing off-site renewable energy.