Client: BioMed Realty Trust

Overview

Bringing a glow to the street, this cascading light art installation turns a three-story entry oculus into a stunning beacon, igniting it with a special spirit of place. It is the new symbol of Boston’s 601 Congress Street, artfully reimagined as the Seaport Science Center, a magnetic environment for today’s innovation culture. With its lobby reimagined by art, the building inspires, sparking creative energy and connection to the world around us.

Initially built in 2004 for a single tenant, 601 Congress was a harbinger of the city’s Innovation District, now synonymous with Boston’s Seaport. Over twenty years on, BioMed Realty’s reinvention of 601 Congress into the Seaport Science Center is a warm, welcoming environment for innovation and life science meant to inspire human connection and discovery. Central to it is the transformed ground-level lobby—formerly branded for and used by a single tenant. Now, like a “coat of many colors,” the lobby’s light art is wonderfully surprising, changeable in hue and mood. Today this colorful, glowing transformation reinforces the Seaport District’s identity as an incubator for creative discovery and brings new joy to this corner of the urban realm.

Goals

The goals of the integrated commissioned artwork, “The Oculus Lighthouse” in Boston’s Seaport Science Center were to dramatically transform the expansive main lobby boldly and beautifully, as part of the repositioning of Boston’s 601 Congress Street, as well as to create a joyful, inspiring presence that would also be seen by passersby, strengthening the innovation center’s connection with this important urban district.

Having set out to design a dynamic home base for cross-industry collaborators, as a subset of this larger endeavor, the developer's prioritizing of collaboration between artists, architects, and engineers is as fitting as its result—this soaring light art—is luminescent.

Process

Led by a visionary client deeply committed to the integration of art in architecture and the public realm, the collaborative team that brought the Seaport Science Center’s multi-story light art to life was a robust one. Beginning with BioMed Realty’s vision that artwork would be an integral part of the redevelopment of 601 Congress, the design team, led by CBT, partnered with Prague-based glass artists Lasvit to create a one-of-a-kind cascading light installation that transformed the building’s three-story oculus-shaped entry into an inspirational beacon that brings the expansive lobby to life through light.

Three stories tall, spanning more than nine meters in height and width, the Oculus dominates the lobby's interior and casts a guiding light for those passing by. Reflecting maritime legacy, the Oculus mirrors a lighthouse's function, while its name evokes the eye-shaped beam of light reaching out to sea. Composed of fused glass, it consists of 468 glass rectangles. Each is set within independently illuminated frames, enabling the Oculus to shine with an ever-changing spectrum of colors and animations.