Boston-based Payette, founded in 1932, and the winner of this year's Architecture Firm Award, has built a reputation for bringing innovative technological solutions to its projects without sacrificing design in the process. Here the firm responds to our architect's version of the Proust questionnaire.
What is the firm’s greatest achievement?
I don’t think we’ve accomplished it yet; we truly believe the best has yet to come! However, our greatest achievement to date has been innovation in our core typologies—our work has shaped how buildings for science and healthcare are designed across the globe. Also, surviving and thriving for over 80 years as one of the last single-office large firms with a national practice.
What is the most memorable moment in your history?
There are a couple of big moments when we received life-changing news, like receiving the news about the Firm Award or when we were awarded the design competition for the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex (ISEC) at Northeastern University, which we knew would a ground-breaking design to which the entire firm contributed.
What project best reflects the firm’s ethos?
The ISEC at Northeastern University is a visible manifestation of the firm’s commitment to the fusion of design and performance. Just this January it was awarded the 2018 Harleston Parker Medal, which recognizes the most beautiful building in Boston annually.
What is your ethos?
We are a collective of designers driven to create boldly original buildings for science and healthcare that are as profoundly humane in their accommodation of needs as they are pioneering in their pursuit of environmental performance.
What’s the best way to describe the personality of your practice?
Collaborative, open, and rigorous. We are not a practice driven by personalities; we are a practice driven by the strength of the collective. Although though there are many strong, talented leaders that make up our firm, we believe our collective intelligence can be transcendent.
What is the greatest ambition the firm has yet to achieve?
While we do specialize in buildings for science and healthcare, our ambition is for the firm to be known for great design work first and our expertise second.
What do you hope the firm’s legacy will be?
Carving out the space in the profession for a large, boutique practice that is a champion of design excellence, building performance, and research in an increasingly equitable and diverse profession.
What is the greatest challenge facing architects today?
Reducing our environmental impact while still producing beautiful architecture in a time when the public too readily accepts mediocrity in the built environment.
What’s one building you wish you had done?
We’ve never designed a skyscraper; however, we’ve been close a few times. Our buildings are often inherently horizontal, so this would be a new challenge for us that would also allow us to push the limits of our building science expertise.
What’s one building you wish you hadn’t done?
We have a few, but they are all from the 1980s and I think almost everyone feels the same way.
What’s the one design/project that got away?
The Engineering Quad at Princeton University. We felt we had the perfect team at the perfect time to do something incredibly special and innovative.
Where would the firm most like to work where it hasn’t already?
The West Coast. Most of our work is east of the Mississippi and overseas, so we are eager to apply our work on environmental and building performance to a West Coast climate, where there are so many opportunities to explore different techniques.
What’s the firm’s biggest strength?
Our people and commitment to a single office—what we believe is a truly collaborative culture.
What’s its biggest weakness?
Our New England roots tend to make us reserved, which means that proudly telling our stories doesn’t come naturally to us.
What’s the firm’s favorite type of project to work on?
We love to solve puzzles—complex projects that seem almost unsolvable, with incredible programmatic and logistical complexity—that in the end, if they are well-done, look effortless.
What’s the firm’s most enduring tradition?
Our commitment to our typologies, science and healthcare, along with our long history of mentoring emerging talent. Payette has always been a great firm in which to learn how to be an architect and to spend one’s entire career.
What’s a typical charrette like?
We don’t have a typical charrette—we have open critiques and truly believe a good idea can come from anywhere. However, they normally involve four to six designers sitting around a model moving pieces around, or a group sketching over a drawing on a conference table.
What is the firm’s biggest extravagance?
We invest heavily in our resources like our Fabrication Lab and our Building Science Group. Our research is at a level that is quite unusual for a firm of our size. We’re not looking for an immediate return on investment, but rather aim to enrich our practice and, in turn, share our findings with the profession.
What is the biggest change coming to the firm in the next year?
As our practice grows—in staff and projects—we’re also expanding our relationship with the academy in new and exciting ways.
Which five architects, living or dead, would the firm most like to host for dinner?
We polled our office on this one and got a huge range of answers. The most frequently mentioned were: Denise Scott Brown, Hon. FAIA, Zaha Hadid, Charles and Ray Eames, Julia Morgan, and Billie Tsien, AIA.
What’s the one question you wish we had asked (and the answer to that question)?
What’s your secret sauce? Several architects have asked us this question recently. We’ve had a firm-wide mantra that started with our namesake Tom Payette many years ago, and that is a simple and effective answer to this question: Do great architecture, have fun, and make a difference!
What does winning the Firm Award mean to you?
It’s a recognition from our peers of the practice we’ve built—a standard to which we’ve held ourselves for many, many years, and while recognition once seemed elusive, it is so much sweeter now. This process has been a remarkable catalyst to codify our practice and our values. The process itself has made us a much better firm.
