Tall & Urban News

Mayor Marty Walsh and Boston University (BU) President Robert Brown were the guests of honor at the 5 December groundbreaking for BU’s future Center for Computing and Data Sciences. The center will house the school's mathematics, computer science, and statistics departments under one roof at 645-665 Commonwealth Avenue in Kenmore Square.

The 350,000-square-foot (33,000-square-meter), 18-story building was originally proposed in the fall of 2018. The Boston Planning and Development Agency signed off on it in July 2019. It will replace a surface parking lot.

The project’s most eye-catching aspect is perhaps the architecture, which Toronto-based KPMB Architects came up with. The building is designed to look like a stack of books.

“They asked us for something, they used the word ‘iconic,’” Marianne McKenna, a KPMB founding partner, said in October 2018.

The building will also be the tallest on BU’s campus, with a four-story podium above a basement and then 13 floors on top of that, with a top floor for mechanical, electrical, and plumbing apparatuses.

The building will also be environmentally sustainable, according to BU. It will be built five feet (1.5 meters) above the city’s suggested level for sea rise and will include features such as geothermal wells, shading systems, and triple-glazed windows. It is also being designed and built to completely avoid the use of fossil fuels. The site also across the street from the Boston University East light rail station on the Green Line.

The university expects to open the center in 2022.

For more on this story, go to Curbed Boston.