by Heather Livingston

The new Courtyard Marriott in Brookline, Mass., is anything but typical of the modestly priced hotel chain. In this project, you’ll find no garden-style guest rooms or gazebos in the garden. What you will find is thoughtful design that enhances the streetscape and respects its neighbors, reports Gary Johnson, AIA, of Cambridge Seven Associates (C7A).

In this community just outside Boston where Frederick Law Olmsted once lived and practiced, the degree of density runs from rural to suburban to urban—unusual for a town a mere 20-minute train ride from a large downtown. Also unusual is Brookline’s particularly vocal and involved selectmen, planning board, and community groups. When the town decided to tear out a 70-car parking lot in the neighborhood of Coolidge Corner, the community voiced considerable concern about losing the space and the need to erect a structure in keeping with the neighborhood fabric. The town issued RFPs to development teams and held public meetings to address concerns of residents and community groups.

Addressing the community’s needs
Because the parking lot contained large, old trees, many townspeople perceived the lot as open space and a community asset. Some worried that a new building would worsen traffic congestion and aggravate speeding in an already problematic area. Others hoped that a new endeavor on the site would increase the tax base and enhance commercial development. The community finally agreed that, due to the location’s easy access to Boston, universities, and hospitals and the suitability of the building type, a hotel best met their collective needs.

The town selected C7A and Carpenter & Co. to design for the site. With no hotel partner identified, the planning committee looked first to the desires of the community and determined that “the building ought to convey a sense of age, yet never lose its identity among its neighbors.” Key design issues included overhauling a dangerous side street, designing a structure without a shadow impact, relating the 8-story building to its 5-story neighbors, and making the site an accessible public amenity.

The road that runs alongside the hotel site was a hazardous cut-through that created traffic incidents, frightened pedestrians, and frustrated drivers. To transform it into a “community street,” the architect integrated “traffic calming strategies,” designed by Halvorson Design Partnership and Howard Stein Hudson, using grade and material changes, lighting, scale, sidewalk depth, and chicanes (alternating-side parking techniques) to enhance the pedestrian experience while allowing vehicles to pass through.

A good neighbor
The design advisory committee conducted numerous sessions devoted to the issues of building without shadow impact and in character with the community. C7A designed the structure with three setbacks that open the building to the street front in an expression of courtesy and neighborliness. Johnson reports that they “started playing with massing strategies to allow the building to relate to its neighbors across the street.” The resulting hotel has roots in the New England building tradition yet is contemporized with clean, brick detailing. It uses a 5-story entry façade with an open-air trellis and terrace on the upper level, and a series of bay front windows to maintain the street edge and architectural character of Brookline’s residential streets. Computer-aided shadow studies helped the team address concerns about shade, resulting in a design with virtually no impact on adjacent building façades with windows or the streetscape.

In keeping with the “courtyard” feel, the sides of the hotel open onto the street as a public park, inviting passersby and guests to wander in and enjoy the vegetation. A piazza offers playful and inviting benches while a variety of plantings add color and depth to the garden. Craig Halvorson, principal landscape architect notes, “The hotel has an architectural presence on the street, but one that fits with the urban fabric as if it belongs as part of the neighborhood. The inside-outside relationship of the architecture and landscape work well together.”

“An integrated urban space”
Although Marriott came on board after the hotel’s design was well underway, the design team had a strong idea of the type of client who would sign on. With that in mind, they “started thinking about the hotel experience,” says Johnson. “We realized that we all have instantly recognizable references upon entering a hotel. You come in the front door and much of the activity is transparent from front to back. We tried to incorporate that here, using the courtyard as the orienting device. When you enter this hotel, you look through layers of glass in the lobby, out the back, through the courtyard and patio, and across to the pool. It’s transparent throughout.”

One additional amenity the team provided the community was the complete replacement of the lost 70 parking spots from the former lot. The three-level parking garage below the site provides hotel parking, and the public, who cannot park on the street at nighttime, may park in the building “for pennies.” Johnson concludes, “The hotel ended up being a very friendly building. It’s almost reticent, calming in some ways, and Coolidge Corner is now a far more integrated urban space.”

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