TYPE: Life Sciences
LOCATION: Kendall Square
STATUS: Complete - 2024
LOCATION: Kendall Square
STATUS: Complete - 2024
30 Hampshire Street is a four-story ground-up commercial office and laboratory building on one of the last undeveloped parcels in Kendall Square. This prominent corner site, directly abutting an existing high-rise, demanded inventive structural solutions. With a zero-lot-line foundation, secant piles were drilled to provide earth retention during construction and serve as the permanent foundation walls, enabling a full basement and efficient upper floors.
At the street level, the building establishes a striking presence with a porcelain façade detailed in continuous marble veining. Above, three floors of laboratory and office space are clad in fritted glass glazing, offering expansive views of Kendall Square while reducing glare and solar heat gain. A 125-foot exhaust stack—necessary for laboratory safety—is wrapped in perforated metal panels, transforming infrastructure into a defining architectural feature.
The building’s interiors are tailored to small and medium-sized biotechnology companies, with floor-through suites that maximize natural light from two facades. Fifteen-foot floor-to-floor heights accommodate advanced laboratory infrastructure while maintaining openness. Each floor integrates laboratory and office space, combining benches, tissue culture rooms, and fume hoods with contemporary work areas, private offices, and shared meeting rooms to support efficient research workflows.
Supporting functions are fully integrated into the footprint, including a covered loading dock, secure indoor bicycle storage, and parking for twelve cars. Together, these elements create a building that is both technically sophisticated and architecturally expressive, reinforcing Kendall Square’s identity as a global center for life science innovation.
Photography by Chris Rucinski
At the street level, the building establishes a striking presence with a porcelain façade detailed in continuous marble veining. Above, three floors of laboratory and office space are clad in fritted glass glazing, offering expansive views of Kendall Square while reducing glare and solar heat gain. A 125-foot exhaust stack—necessary for laboratory safety—is wrapped in perforated metal panels, transforming infrastructure into a defining architectural feature.
The building’s interiors are tailored to small and medium-sized biotechnology companies, with floor-through suites that maximize natural light from two facades. Fifteen-foot floor-to-floor heights accommodate advanced laboratory infrastructure while maintaining openness. Each floor integrates laboratory and office space, combining benches, tissue culture rooms, and fume hoods with contemporary work areas, private offices, and shared meeting rooms to support efficient research workflows.
Supporting functions are fully integrated into the footprint, including a covered loading dock, secure indoor bicycle storage, and parking for twelve cars. Together, these elements create a building that is both technically sophisticated and architecturally expressive, reinforcing Kendall Square’s identity as a global center for life science innovation.
Photography by Chris Rucinski
