64 Pleasant Street, Life Science Space

watertown, ma

After selling Sasaki’s headquarters building to a life science space developer, Sasaki’s interiors team was approached to design the common spaces within this industrial mill building. This new use of the building would provide spaces for two lab tenants to occupy. The team was tasked with creating unique, bold, and forward thinking spaces that both tenants would be able to share in this building. The common spaces include main lobby, café, restrooms, gym, work lounge spaces, and vertical passageways. Wanting to steer away from the classic white on white lab design typically seen, Sasaki chose a design that fell almost at the opposite side of that spectrum. An overall base of black and grey paired with a vibrant almost neon color pallet was utilized to bring depth and intrigue to such a clean and sterile environment. Inspired by bioluminescence and deep sea creatures, this pallet brings the mood back into science spaces, creating an environment that evokes interest and curiosity, which in the end, is what science is all about.

Materials such as black wood, dichromatic glass, and textured neon fabrics contrasted against the natural and industrial existing materials of the mill building structure. Large graphic acoustic panels with images of obscure bioluminescence provided both visual and sound dampening qualities for work lounge spaces. To encourage intermingling between the two future tenants, different types of seating was introduced. Work posture, relaxation posture, and in-between is used throughout to achieve this.