- Location: 300 Summer Street, Boston, MA (1995)
- Client: The Fort Point Arts Community
- Size: 9 story building, 100,000 square feet, 50 studios
- Material: Brick, concrete, metals, architectural finishes, recycled steel plates
- Budget: $3,000,000
- Funded: The Artist Cooperative members
- Artist: Lajos Heder
- Photo Credits: Kathy Chapman
Artist Housing For Boston
To date, 300 Summer Street is the most prominently located artists’ building in the Boston area. Located in South Boston it is ideally situated to draw together the established Fort Point Arts Community and Greater Boston’s artists and art patrons. The building provides a strong artist presence in the city and offers a significant public space for the arts community. On this project artist and architect Lajos Héder converted the derelict warehouse to artist studio/housing, and also worked as artist to create the building’s steel plate sculpture.
Goals & Challenges
The 300 Summer Street building encompasses 100,000 ft2 and 9 stories of brick, concrete and steel. Once a neglected warehouse, it has been converted into a space for artists’ live/work studios and art related businesses. The studios are simple, inexpensive lofts. They contain sufficient facilities to meet building codes for occupancy with the intention that the spaces will be further finished and improved by the artist/owners.
The Main Entrance and Atrium of 300 Summer Street feature sculpture created from steel plates recycled from the original warehouse.
A Community Center
The building is now a vital community center for over 400 artists. It currently contains 47 units of artists’ live/work lofts, 9 units of art-related businesses, a cooperative gallery, and a restaurant.
Illustration showing how the raw loft spaces can be used by artists